Are big businesses being rewarded for polluting more?

That's the question State Representative Zack Hudgins (D -Tukwila) posed to the Department of Ecology (DOE) when he called for the creation of the Toxics Reduction Advisory Committee (TRAC) last legislative session.

Hudgins tasked the committee with addressing the way in which DOE collects fees from businesses that release toxic industrial pollution into our air, land, and water.

State officials and business leaders recently reported back to the members of the state House Committee on Environmental Health, of which Hudgins serves as the majority leader, on their efforts to revamp the system perceived by some to be allowing bigger polluters to get away with larger quantities of toxic emissions.

Here's how the system works: Currently the state DOE can collect fees from companies for toxic emissions up to a certain limit.

That limit is what has many smaller companies, as well as environmental advocates, calling for change. The more a company pollutes, they argue, the less impact the fee has.

"I wasn't aware of the little-known program until I saw a report on it in a local paper," said Hudgins. "After reading that, I knew there had to be a better way to prevent toxins from entering our environment, while helping businesses - especially small ones without the available resources - reach a more sustainable level of emissions."

Hudgins challenged DOE's experts and lobbied his legislative colleagues in the House and Senate to come up with a new way of funding the program, as well as the incentives for pollution-reduction strategies adopted by businesses.

His efforts led to the creation in the 2008 state budget of TRAC, the stakeholder advisory group that weighed in on the fee cap, as well as efforts to reduce all toxic emissions in the state by 50 percent.

The 17-member TRAC, representing environmental, labor, and business interests announced its findings and recommendations during the House Environmental Health Committee's hearing recently.

Their recommendations include:

_increase research and development for cleaner alternatives to industrial chemicals;

Identify which products include high priority hazardous substances to assist businesses in identifying where these substances are;

Improve the effectiveness and delivery of technical assistance in pollution prevention planning;

Encourage moving away from "end-of-pipe" pollution reduction approaches to increase hazardous waste prevention throughout the state;

Redistribute the hazardous waste planning fee among the fee payers to make it more proportional to the amount of their waste and emissions.

Hudgins plans to lead an effort in the Legislature to call for the adoption of the committee's recommendations.

"I'm very pleased with the results of our year-long efforts," Hudgins said. "Despite differences of opinion spanning the entire spectrum, they were able to come together and agree on a core set of principles that will help our state reach our goal of a sustainable 'evergreen' legacy worth passing on to future generations."

To learn more about the Toxics Reduction Advisory Committee and read their findings and recommendations report, visit: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/hwtr/TRAC/index.html