Parshley: Let’s Learn What Washington Has

The author of Washington House Bill 1630, requiring the state to monitor methane emissions from beef and dairy operations, said she wants to make sure the state has the most up-to-date data.  Olympia Representative Lisa Parshley said she talked with a variety of animal vets before sponsoring this legislation.  She noted when California looked at methane emissions and the impact the farming industry was having on Climate Change, assumptions were made, which was not fair to the beef and dairy sectors.  And she stressed having correct data starts with monitoring.

“Let's see what the data says. Where does it lead us? Do we need to do any policy beyond monitoring? And that's where I'm at. I don't like to make decisions, especially about something like climate change or anything else, that's not scientifically backed up. And if we find and discover that the methane in Washington on these feed lots and these dairy farms aren’t worthy of anything further than monitoring, that's great, we've done what we asked.”

Parshley said her legislation is not trying to regulate beyond that.  She added while the state Department of Ecology will monitor those methane levels, state lawmakers will be watching as well.

“One of the things I learned as a City Council member [Olympia] is when you start something, you have to acknowledge when it's not perfect and you come back and you fix it.  And you have to learn from whatever you do. No policy is 100% perfect when you start it, but you try to make it as close as you can.”

Parshley added she doesn’t want to negatively impact food production, or food availability.

“If we don't start with monitoring, we could end up with policy that's based on assumptions, innuendos and data from another state, that may have different production methods may have different size dairies and feed lots, and they may have corporate which are much, much larger and much more of and impact.  Let’s just start with understanding what Washington has.” 

Parshley added one of her priorities is to make sure smaller operations are not impacted by this legislation.  Click Here to learn more about House Bill 1630.

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