2025 Legislative Session Recap: Advancing Climate & Health in Washington

This session, WPSR showed up in Olympia to advocate for what matters most: protecting public health by reducing climate pollution, investing in resilience, and ensuring environmental justice. Led by WPSR members, legislative partners, and our Climate and Health Task Force, we pushed for bold action.

Facing a budget shortfall, new faces in the legislature and in the Governor’s office, raising education and awareness on the importance of climate investments was one of the best ways advocates could speak up for climate and health. While not every priority or “good” climate bill passed, this year brought important progress and laid critical groundwork for what’s next.

This year, we entered legislative session with four key priorities:

• Clean Air for All, to reduce harmful emissions from anesthetic gases and phase out polluting wood stoves through stronger standards. This includes the CURB Pollution Act to address unregulated pollutants, protect vulnerable communities, and amplify community voices in pollution permitting decisions.

• Adapting to extreme weather, which means expanded funding for portable heat pumps, climate education programs, and mental health resources to address rising climate anxiety like the ClimeTime education program and build community resilience.

• Sustainable Transportation through investments in clean transit, including bills to expand intercity passenger rail, shore power at ports, and active transportation options to reduce pollution and improve health.

• Equitable Climate Funding: We committed to ensuring Climate Commitment Act funds benefit overburdened communities through energy assistance, environmental justice programs, and resilience-focused infrastructure projects.

Below, we break down the biggest wins for climate and health, what didn’t make it across the finish line, and where we go from here.

Want to join WPSR in our efforts to protect Climate and Health? Sign up for our climate list and consider becoming a Climate and Health Task Force member.

Biggest Wins for Climate & Health

🛑 Climate Commitment Act Funds Protected — and Put to Work:

Amid a major budget shortfall, there was early concern that lawmakers would divert Climate Commitment Act (CCA) funds to backfill the general budget. Thanks to advocacy from WPSR and many of our allies, the legislature held the line. CCA funds were preserved and allocated to key programs that advance both health and climate equity. Some highlights for CCA expenditures include: This bill, which WPSR supported from the very beginning, modernizes Washington’s broken recycling system, especially around plastics, which are derived from fossil fuels and release harmful pollutants throughout their lifecycle.

• Over $3 billion in CCA-related investments, including in clean transportation, building electrification, and community climate resilience.

• Backfilling of core clean air programs at the Department of Ecology with CCA funds, avoiding devastating cuts to health-protective air monitoring and enforcement programs.

• Continued funding for environmental justice implementation, aligning with HEAL Act priorities.

This means real benefits for Washingtonians: lower emissions, better air quality, and targeted investments in communities most affected by climate change and pollution.

♻️ Recycling Reform Act (SB 5284) — A Win for Pollution Prevention & Health

This bill, which WPSR supported from the very beginning, modernizes Washington’s broken recycling system, especially around plastics, which are derived from fossil fuels and release harmful pollutants throughout their lifecycle.

• It establishes Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging, shifting the financial burden of recycling from ratepayers to producers — an upstream strategy that disincentivizes single-use plastics.

• It phases out toxic “chemical recycling” practices that generate hazardous air pollutants and residual waste.

• It mandates equitable access to recycling, benefiting rural and low-income areas where services are often inadequate.

From a health perspective, this legislation reduces community exposure to pollutants linked to cancer, endocrine disruption, and respiratory illness — especially in frontline communities near landfills, incinerators, or highways where plastic waste accumulates.

🚌 Clean Buses, Clean Air: Diesel Reduction in Transportation

Two major investments target a major public health threat: diesel exhaust. Diesel particulate matter is a Group 1 carcinogen, and exposure is strongly associated with asthma, cardiovascular disease, and early death — particularly in children and portside or freeway-adjacent communities. These programs prioritize deployment in overburdened communities, aligning with both health equity and emissions reduction goals.

• Passage of HB1837, Innercity Passenger Rail, which will set targets for increasing access to Amtrak Cascades rail for Washingtonians, and aims to ensure these trains run on time and speed up in the future.

• $126 million for the Zero-Emission Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicle Incentive Program, funding electric trucks for commercial fleets.

• $35 million for electric school buses, reducing diesel exhaust exposure for children riding to and from school each day.

• $26.2 million for the Port Electrification Grant Program, which will help ports in Washington to reduce the impacts of harmful shipping emissions by supporting projects that electrify infrastructure.

🧠 Mental Health & Climate Resilience: Investments in Capacity, Care & Education

This session, we secured steps toward building a climate-resilient mental health infrastructure, ensuring that there is funding for the ClimeTime program and school-based climate education. We hope to integrate socioemotional curricula through partnership with the program.

🏡 Electrification and Healthy Housing Programs Supported

Low-income households face some of the highest energy burdens and are most vulnerable to extreme weather. These investments reduce emissions and the health risks from inefficient, fossil-fuel-powered homes — particularly for people with asthma, heart conditions, or other chronic illnesses. This session included key budget wins for climate-resilient housing:

• $30 million for the Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEAR) Program, which will support installation of high-efficiency heat pumps, induction stoves, and other electrification upgrades. Language was included to prioritize access for renters, low-income households, and those in overburdened communities — a key WPSR priority.

• $35 million for Weatherization Plus Health, a program that combines energy efficiency with home health improvements (e.g., mold remediation, asthma-safe materials).

What We’ll Keep Working On

SB 5236 — Anesthesia Greenhouse Gas Emissions: WPSR championed this bill, which would have helped study and move clinical providers away from potent anesthetic gases like desflurane, which contributes disproportionately to hospital emissions. Desflurane has no clinical advantage over alternatives like sevoflurane and can be replaced without compromising patient care. Though the bill didn’t pass this session, it gained strong support from clinicians, hospitals, and climate advocates and helped to raised public awareness of the healthcare sector’s carbon footprint (5% of Washington’s GHG emissions).

Extreme Weather Funding: While we saw the expansion of programs to include specific language for renters, we know that this work most continue. Extreme heat still poses a significant threat to the health of Washingtonians and we hope that the state will continue to explore ways to keep overburdened communities protected via sufficient cooling and heating in their homes.

This session confirmed what we already knew: when health professionals speak out, lawmakers listen. WPSR brought a health voice to the Capitol — one that connects science, justice, and humanity to every policy we advocate for. From mental health to clean air to resilient housing, we helped move the needle toward a safer, healthier Washington. We’re proud of what we accomplished. And we’re already preparing for 2026.