Gregoire wants one-day special session, maybe next week

• Published April 27, 2009

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"I told them I need you to go home. You need to reconnect with your family," Gregoire added, referring to her 12:30 a.m. talk with Speaker Chopp, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and two Republican leaders.

"I hope really soon, but I want them to have some time away. But I don't want them to come back and debate,’’ Gregoire said. “I’m not going to bring them back and have them spend days debating,’’ she added.

Brown's office issued a list of four bills early this morning that would be the focus: House Bill 1776, which gives local school districts authority to collect more from voter-approved school levies; SB 6138, which makes technical changes to HB 1776; SB 6183 on immigrant offenders; and SB 6160 on other sentencing issues.

Gregoire said she also she was disappointed that her climate change bill, which initially sought to set up a cap-and-trade system for letting emitters of greenhouse gases buy credits if they cannot meet emission standards taking effect by 2020. But it wasn't clear she would let that bill, Senate Bill 5735, become part of a special session mixture.

And state Ecology director Jay Manning told me after the press conference he'll be talking to the governor to see what they can to do keep Washington "in the leadership" among states addressing the issue. It might be that Gregoire issues an executive order in keeping the state part of the Western Climate Initiative involving western states and Canadian provinces.

Brown has said she's like to address SB 5840, which amends Initiative 937's requirements for utilities to use new renewable sources of electricity starting in 2012. That bill led to the meltdown Sunday in which some Tacoma and Vancouver lawmakers refused to vote for the capital budget bond if the bill was not killed.

Stay tuned.

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