This bill amends existing plumbing and electrician certification statutes (RCW 18.106.070 and RCW 19.28.211) and adds a new section to chapter 49.04 RCW. The changes are primarily procedural and regulatory: they revise certificate issuance and renewal rules, continuing education requirements, trainee supervision and ratio rules for plumbing apprentices/learners, fee-setting authority, and create a new mandatory behavioral health and wellness training requirement for approved apprenticeship programs in building and construction trades. Key provisions include: plumbing certificates renewed every three years with 24 hours of continuing education (including 4 hours of electrical safety), and up to 4 of those hours may be behavioral health and wellness training (minimum 2 hours of instruction); failure to renew by the renewal date requires paying twice the usual renewal fee and failure to renew within 90 days requires retaking the exam. Plumbing trainee rules specify supervision requirements, remote supervision conditions (trainee with >2,000 hours, supervising plumber within 40 miles, limited scope of work), specified trainee-to-plumber ratios that change after December 31, 2028, annual renewal and employer reporting for training certificates, a 16-hour classroom training minimum, and one-to-one supervision for medical gas piping trainees. Electrician certificate provisions include three-year renewals with an annual eight-hour continuing education option, allowance for up to four hours of behavioral health and wellness training to count toward continuing education, acceptance of out-of-state continuing education if comparable, statewide authority for certificate holders to work without additional local permits, and fee-setting by rule. The new section added to chapter 49.04 RCW requires apprenticeship programs for building or construction trade occupations approved by the apprenticeship council, beginning July 1, 2027, to provide and require successful completion of behavioral health and wellness training that includes at least two hours of instruction and is additional to existing minimum related or supplemental instruction. Any new or updated apprenticeship standards approved on or after that date must include the required training hours. The measure contains some missing or unclear text in the provided extracts: the specific agency referred to as "the department" is not identified, the full text of the new section added to chapter 49.04 RCW is not included here, and the amendment to RCW 19.28.211 is incomplete in the supplied material.

If enacted, the bill will make behavioral health and wellness training a required part of continuing education for plumbers and electricians (up to four hours counted toward CE, with at least two instructional hours) and will require apprenticeship programs in building and construction trades to add at least two hours of this training starting July 1, 2027. It also standardizes some certification practices—accepting comparable out-of-state continuing education, preserving three‑year renewal cycles for plumber and electrician certificates, keeping an annual renewal for plumbing trainees, and keeping penalties for late renewal (double fee and exam retake if more than 90 days late). Supervising plumbers and employers will still need to follow the specified trainee supervision and ratio rules now tied to deadlines (with a new, tighter ratio for residential jobs after December 31, 2028), and the advisory board must periodically convene a subgroup with industry and union representatives to evaluate and report on trainee ratios. The people and organizations most affected are licensed plumbers and electricians (who must fit behavioral health content into their CE), apprentices and apprenticeship programs (which must add the required training hours and update program standards), employers who supervise trainees (who must follow on-site and remote supervision limits, track trainee hours and employer lists for renewals, and may face limits on how many trainees they can have), and training providers who will need to offer approved behavioral health courses. Fees to cover administration and enforcement are set by rule, so providers and certificate holders should expect training and administrative costs to shift into those fee structures; some implementation details are missing (the specific agency named as "the department" and the full text of the new apprenticeship section and portions of the electrician amendment are not included), so exact enforcement and some procedural mechanics remain unclear.