This bill adds new sections to chapter 43.21C RCW and amends RCW 70A.15.2210 to require environmental justice be incorporated into state environmental review processes. It directs the Department of Ecology to add "environmental justice" to specified WAC sections and to adopt community engagement rules, requires lead agencies to complete an environmental justice impact statement (EJIS) for "potentially impactful projects" located in whole or in part in a "pollution burdened community," and sets detailed procedural requirements for public notice, OFM publication, and community hearings. The EJIS requirement applies only to proposed actions for which review had not been initiated as of the bill's effective date and that are completed on or after January 1, 2027. The EJIS is a procedural, substantive review document that must identify existing environmental and public health stressors, compare those stressors to an identified geographic point of comparison (the lower of the state or county median, excluding other pollution burdened communities), calculate a combined stressor total, and assess whether a project would create or contribute to adverse cumulative stressors or a disproportionate impact. Project proponents must supply specified technical and complaint-history information, a public participation plan, and either demonstrate avoidance of disproportionate impacts or provide additional mitigation and alternative-location information. Lead agencies must consider the EJIS and public testimony and, consistent with RCW 43.21C.060, may deny or impose mitigation conditions on projects that cause or would contribute to disproportionate impacts; economic benefits may not be considered in those decisions. Lead agencies may require proponents to reimburse demonstrated EJIS costs. The amendments to RCW 70A.15.2210 make procedural changes to air permitting: applicants must be notified within 30 days whether a notice of construction application is complete and a final decision must be issued or notice-and-comment initiated within 60 days of a complete application; integrated review of operating permits and notices of construction is permitted; Ecology must adopt rules identifying categories of de minimis new sources; and the department or board is barred from issuing approvals for listed high-emission source types in census tracts ranked nine or ten on the state environmental health disparities map, with exceptions for certain national security facilities and defined clean energy projects. Some portions of the text were not provided in the extracted facts (including full language of sections 2 and 3, several subsections, and portions of timing requirements), so certain procedural details and complete subsection text are uncertain from the available material.

If enacted, proposed new or expanded projects that match the bill’s list of “potentially impactful” activities (large air emitters, incinerators, landfills, sewage plants, transfer stations, major transportation-related pollution sources, and many permits under chapter 70A.15 and 90.48 RCW) located in communities ranked as pollution burdened (ranked seven or higher on the state’s environmental health disparities map, adjacent communities, or similar areas identified by Ecology) will need a detailed environmental justice impact statement (EJIS) before a SEPA determination. That EJIS must inventory existing environmental and health stressors using set comparison points, analyze project impacts under maximum use, include complaint histories and technical data, be published by OFM, and trigger a local hearing with mailed notices; if a proponent cannot show the project will avoid creating or worsening cumulative stressors, a disproportionate impact is presumed and lead agencies must deny the action or impose mitigation without weighing economic benefits. These steps add time (with OFM publication and minimum waiting periods before hearings and determinations), extra technical and outreach work, and likely additional costs for project proponents, while giving pollution-burdened communities formal opportunities to review and contest projects. The agencies that will see the biggest operational changes are lead SEPA agencies, the Department of Ecology, OFM, and delegated air authorities: Ecology must add environmental justice to SEPA rules and adopt engagement and de minimis source rules, OFM must publish EJIS materials, and lead agencies must run hearings, evaluate EJISs, and may recover demonstrated EJIS costs from proponents. Project proponents face higher upfront study, public engagement, and potential mitigation or denial risk (and cannot rely on economic benefits to justify approval), while residents in pollution-burdened communities will receive mailed notice and structured hearings. Some details needed to implement the program—certain definitions, the complete content lists for subsections referenced, and a few timing rules—are missing from the available text, so exact thresholds and procedures remain partly unclear.