House Bill 2285 (prefiled 01/07/26, read 01/12/26) amends multiple sections of chapter 19.405 RCW (including RCW 19.405.020, .040, .050, .060, .080, .090, .160, and .170) and creates a new section. The bill explicitly authorizes electric utilities to count electricity from natural gas systems operated with carbon capture, utilization, mineralization, or sequestration technology toward meeting the Clean Energy Transformation Act standards for 2030 and the 100%-by-2045 requirement, and adds or revises detailed definitions (including distributed energy resource, nonemitting electric generation, renewable energy credit, and baseline carbon dioxide production for applicable natural gas systems). The bill revises statutory compliance and planning procedures. It establishes greenhouse gas neutrality by January 1, 2030 with four-year compliance periods through 2044, requires utilities to pursue all cost‑effective conservation and efficiency, and allows a mix of nonemitting generation, renewable resources, and qualifying electricity from natural gas systems (with specified conditions) to meet load. Up to 20 percent of four‑year compliance obligations through 2044 may be met using alternative compliance payments, unbundled RECs, eligible energy transformation projects (subject to Department of Ecology conversion factors and criteria), or certain pre‑1992 municipal solid waste recovery facilities. Investor‑owned and consumer‑owned utilities must file four‑year clean energy implementation plans and interim targets (first due Jan 1, 2022 and every four years), with the commission approving investor‑owned plans and governing bodies adopting consumer‑owned plans; the department must report to the legislature by Jan 1, 2024 and at least every four years thereafter. The bill also prescribes methods for calculating baseline CO2 production for applicable natural gas systems; that calculation differs depending on when systems were placed in service, but one sentence setting a capture design capacity requirement is truncated in the available text and is therefore incomplete here. The bill changes enforcement, penalty, and administrative procedures. It sets an administrative penalty for utilities that use generation to meet load that is not qualifying renewable, qualifying CCUS-consistent natural gas, or nonemitting generation, with per‑MWh amounts multiplied by factors for coal and different gas units, requires biennial inflation adjustment beginning 2027, and allows payment of the penalty as an alternative compliance payment. The commission, auditor, and attorney general roles in approval, audit, relief, and enforcement are spelled out; the commission and governing bodies may grant temporary relief if compliance would conflict with NERC reliability standards or prudent utility practice, and penalty revenues are directed to a low‑income weatherization and structural rehabilitation assistance account. The bill also adds procedural provisions for declaratory orders on project compliance, requires fair‑market replacement valuation in certain condemnations by municipal utilities or districts, and includes hydroelectric siting limits and energy transformation project criteria. Some provisions and definitions are truncated or reference other RCWs and agencies without being fully reproduced in the extracted text (for example, the full capture design capacity requirement, the identity of one referenced “department,” and the new section’s text are not shown).

If enacted, the bill would let electric utilities count electricity produced from natural gas systems that use carbon capture, utilization, mineralization, or sequestration (CCUS) toward Washington’s 2030 greenhouse gas neutrality and 100% clean electricity by 2045 goals, while also tightening planning, reporting, and compliance rules. Utilities will need to prepare four-year clean energy implementation plans (investor-owned filed with the commission; consumer-owned adopted publicly and filed with the department), pursue all cost‑effective conservation and renewables before using alternatives, and meet cost‑based thresholds that limit how much higher customer costs can rise before other compliance options are used; failing to meet standards triggers per‑MWh administrative penalties (or alternative compliance payments) that increase over time and whose receipts fund low‑income weatherization and rehab. The groups most affected are investor‑owned and consumer‑owned utilities (which face added planning, compliance, and potential capital or procurement costs to deploy or buy CCUS‑qualified electricity), market customers subject to the standards, and agencies charged with oversight (commission, department, auditor, attorney general, Department of Ecology). The measure gives utilities a new compliance option but also creates new reporting duties, potential penalty risk, and requirements to demonstrate they maximized low‑cost clean options first; key technical details that will affect costs and eligibility — such as the exact capture capacity rule and some energy transformation project rules — are truncated or not included here, so implementation and cost outcomes remain uncertain.