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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Supporters: Clean-Fuel Standard Necessary to Clean Up WA Emissions

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Wednesday, March 10, 2021   

OLYMPIA, Wash. - State lawmakers are attempting to clean up Washington's fuel sources yet again this session.

Efforts in the past few years to pass a clean-fuel standard have failed, despite the fact that California, Oregon and British Columbia all have guidelines in place to reduce the carbon intensity of fuel used in vehicles.

Vlad Gutman Britten, Washington state director for the group Climate Solutions, noted that the transportation sector accounts for 45% of the state's greenhouse-gas emissions.

"There just is no low-carbon future without a low-carbon transportation system," he said, "and more and more companies - more and more legislators, more and more people in general - are recognizing that and want to get this program to the governor's desk as a result."

Companies such as Puget Sound Energy and Amazon have come out in support of House Bill 1091. Opponents say it would increase gas and diesel prices, hitting folks in the transportation sector especially hard. The bill has passed the House and is scheduled for a hearing today in the Senate Committee on Environment, Energy and Technology.

Gutman-Britten said Washington already produces some renewable fuels and biofuels, but they're exported to California and Oregon because of their clean-fuel standards.

"We produce the biofuels, but the benefits are accruing to people in other states," he said. "And while I don't begrudge those benefits to Californians or Oregonians, I think Washingtonians should get them, too."

Gutman-Britten said he believes there's the potential to produce more biofuels in Washington if the state adopts this standard. For instance, he said, dairy operations could create renewable natural gas from waste.

"You have to handle and manage the manure, you have to handle the agricultural waste, things like that," he said. "All of that stuff is now potentially a revenue producer, because it can be converted and will be converted into a sustainable replacement for petroleum."


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