This bill establishes new procedural requirements and funding mechanisms for Washington’s newborn screening program and amends state treasury investment/distribution procedures. It adds new sections to chapter 70.83 RCW and chapter 43.70 RCW and amends RCW 70.83.020, 70.83.023, and 70.83.030. Key newborn screening changes require the Department of Health (DOH) to require screening of all infants, require hospitals or providers attending out-of-hospital births to collect and submit a newborn blood specimen within 48 hours of birth and for DOH to receive the specimen within 72 hours of collection (excluding lab closure days), obligate laboratories and clinicians to report all positive screening results to DOH, and direct the State Board of Health to reestablish the newborn screening panel in rule by July 1, 2026. The board must include specified state and federal conditions, review any condition added to the federal Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP) within 12 months to decide on state inclusion, conduct feasibility reviews that consider screening costs, federal funding, fee recommendations, timelines, and impacts on state-purchased and medical care programs, and complete rulemaking within 12 months of a decision to include a condition. The board must also screen public requests for additions for sufficient scientific evidence and may add conditions after the required feasibility review. The bill creates a newborn screening revenue account in the custody of the state treasurer into which receipts under chapter 70.83 RCW must be deposited, limits expenditures from that account to implementing and administering chapter 70.83 RCW, authorizes only the DOH secretary or designee to authorize expenditures, makes the account subject to allotment procedures and not requiring a separate appropriation, and authorizes DOH to charge reasonable screening fees. It separately authorizes an $8.40 per-infant fee, collected through the facility where the specimen is obtained, to fund specialty clinics and community support organizations related to sickle cell disease. The act also reenacts and amends RCW 43.79A.040 to address the treasurer’s trust fund and the investment income account: allowing commingled investment, setting investment income into a specific investment income account that may pay purchased banking services, requiring monthly distribution of earnings to the state general fund except for specified accounts and funds that receive proportionate shares (and some that receive 80 percent of their share), and providing that payments from the investment income account occur prior to distribution of earnings. Section 7 of the act expires July 1, 2030, and Section 8 takes effect July 1, 2030. The provided text is incomplete: portions of Section 7 are missing, the beginning of the list of accounts/funds is cut off, the bill text appears in two chunks and may contain additional provisions or definitions not included here, and one reenactment/amendment reference appears duplicated without explanation.

If enacted, hospitals and any provider attending out-of-hospital births will have to collect newborn blood spots within 48 hours and get them to the state lab within 72 hours, and all newborns will be screened under a state panel the board must reestablish by mid-2026. The state board of health will be required to review any condition added to the federal recommended panel within a year and decide whether to add it to Washington’s panel, and the Department of Health will collect fees to pay for screening operations and a new $8.40 per-infant charge earmarked for sickle cell specialty clinics and community support. Practically, DOH and the state board will face steady additional workload for faster processing, feasibility reviews, and more rulemaking, hospitals/providers will have added collection and reporting duties (and a channel to collect the new fees), specialty clinics and sickle cell support groups are likely to receive new funding, and the DOH will have a dedicated revenue account that it can spend for program implementation with authorization by the DOH secretary rather than relying on separate appropriations. The bill also changes how investment earnings in the treasurer’s trust fund are handled: earnings are set aside to pay banking services first and then distributed monthly to the general fund with many specific accounts getting proportionate or reduced shares; one section of these changes expires in 2030 and another takes effect that year. Important details are missing from the provided excerpts (including the full text of a referenced section and any other provisions outside these chunks), so exact timing, additional fee amounts, and some operational or budgetary mechanics remain unclear.