Tag Archives: Sen. Mark Schoesler

Schoesler votes ‘no’ on Democrats’ bill to dismantle parental-rights initiative

State Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, and other Senate Republicans voted against a bill introduced by Senate Democrats that would eliminate important rights from the parental-rights law approved by the Legislature last year.

Senate Bill 5181 was passed today along party lines, 30-19.

“This bill is a slap in the face of the 454,000 Washingtonians who signed the petition sheets allowing the parental rights initiative to be sent to the Legislature last year,” said Schoesler, who serves the 9th Legislative District.

“Initiative 2081 was passed unanimously by the Senate a year ago, but now my Democratic counterparts want to take a legislative chisel to it and remove parts of it that parents supported most. At a time when parents’ trust in Washington’s public-school system is lower than ever, we should not pass a bill that weakens the parental-rights initiative. But that’s what the Senate majority did today.”

SB 5181 would end or hinder parents’ access to important school-related medical information, including:

  • Prior notification when medical services are offered (except in emergencies).
  • Notification when medical services or medication could impact health insurance.
  • Notification when school-arranged medical treatment results in follow-up care.

It also contains an “emergency clause” that would eliminate the constitutional right of voters to challenge the bill through a referendum. Democrats rejected a Republican amendment to remove the language from the bill.

“There’s no emergency here, so including an emergency clause has no purpose other than to prevent citizens from pushing back through the referendum process. If Democrats are afraid to find out what the voters think of the changes this bill makes, they should have left the law alone.”

SB 5181 now goes to the House of Representatives for further consideration.

Schoesler to serve on Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee

Sen. Mark Schoesler will return to the Senate committee that addresses agricultural issues when the Legislature’s 2025 session begins next month.

The 9th District senator today learned he has been appointed to the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Schoesler, a fifth-generation farmer who grows wheat, barley and fall peas and raises cattle, is pleased about coming back to the ag panel. For many years, his Senate leadership responsibilities prevented him from serving on that committee. Schoesler stepped down as Senate Republican leader in November 2020 after eight years.

“In addition to being a longtime farmer, I represent and serve a district that relies on agriculture,” said Schoesler, R-Ritzville. “Ag remains an important part of our region’s economy. I understand the challenges that farmers and ranchers face. I look forward to again offering an ag-friendly voice on this committee when session starts.”

Schoesler will continue his long streak of serving on the Senate Ways and Means Committee when the Legislature convenes Jan. 13 for 105 days. The 2025 session will mark the 21st straight year Schoesler has been a member of the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee since joining the Senate in 2005.

“I take great pride and responsibility in serving on the Ways and Means Committee and I’m pleased to continue doing so,” said Schoesler. “Tax and spending issues have always been among my highest priorities as a legislator. As a Ways and Means member, I watch out for families and businesses in my district and our state by working to keep taxes and spending in check.”

Schoesler will again be the Ways and Means Committee’s lead Republican on the capital budget, which helps fund construction projects for state government buildings, state parks and colleges and universities.

“In this role, I work with my fellow Republicans and lead Democrats on the committee to produce a list of worthwhile projects to include in the state capital budget for the next two years, including those impacting local school districts and higher education institutions like WSU and Eastern,” said Schoesler, whose district includes the Pullman-based Washington State University and Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

Schoesler also will continue serving on the recently renamed Senate Labor and Commerce Committee. He says he will continue advocating for regulatory reform and other issues that will benefit Washington’s job creators and working families.

“My years of experience in the business of farming have helped me understand regulatory issues, which along with workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance are among the key topics this committee addresses. I know how overzealous regulations imposed by government agencies can be as hard on employers as taxes,” said Schoesler.

Schoesler said the Labor and Commerce Committee should focus on shrinking and simplifying Washington’s vast, complex regulatory system.

“Washington’s regulatory code has over 196,000 separate regulations, which is more than all but five states have. That should tell you there is serious need for reform – and this committee is the place to start,” added Schoesler.

Schoesler represents the 9th Legislative District, which covers all or part of Adams, Asotin, Franklin, Garfield, Spokane and Whitman counties.

Republican senators question timing, purpose of proposed payments to farm-fuel users

Sen. Mark Schoesler

OLYMPIA… The two state senators who farm in eastern Washington say they’re not sure what to make of a proposed offer of money for farm-fuel users who got stuck paying a surcharge on their fuel purchases because of the state’s cap-and-trade law.

The payments, which could amount to no more than pennies per gallon for many farming operations, are offered in the state Senate’s supplemental operating-budget proposal.

Sen. Perry Dozier

“I don’t know anyone in the agricultural sector who would view this as a solution to the fuel-surcharge issue we’ve been fighting more than a year, since cap-and-trade was fully implemented,” said Sen. Perry Dozier, R-Waitsburg.

“These payments wouldn’t come close to making up for what farm-fuel users have been forced to pay because the executive branch of state government failed to uphold the promise made in the cap-and-trade law – that farm diesel and fuel used by the maritime industry would be exempt from the surcharge this new program would create,” said Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

Schoesler serves on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, which held a public hearing yesterday on the proposed supplemental operating budget. The budget appropriation doesn’t refer to the payments as rebates or reimbursements, and routes them through the state Department of Licensing – not the Department of Ecology, which is responsible for implementing the cap-and-trade law.

“Are these payments a way for the state to ease its guilty conscience for failing so badly on upholding the promised fuel-surcharge exemption? Does the timing have anything to do with the certification of the initiative to repeal the cap-and-trade law? Are the supporters of cap-and-trade just looking to throw a bone to agriculture? No one who buys farm fuel by the truckload would come up with this,” said Dozier.

Dozier and Schoesler are the sponsors of Senate Bill 5728, introduced in 2023. It would basically force Ecology to develop a process for implementing the promised exemptions. The bill has been ignored, and a task force set up by Ecology during the summer failed to completely resolve industry concerns.

Given that background, the senators were surprised to see a $30 million appropriation, buried on page 564 of the new Senate budget proposal, “solely for payments to support farm fuel users and transporters who have purchased fuel for agricultural purposes that is exempt from the requirements of the Climate Commitment Act… but paid a surcharge or an additional fee.”

The payments would be made by the Department of Licensing to “noncorporate farms” first – a term not defined in the budget bill – depending on annual farm-fuel consumption. The first tier, those using less than 1,000 gallons annually, would receive $600; the second tier, between 1,000 and 4,000 gallons consumed, would get $2,300; and those using 4,000 gallons or more a year would receive $3,400.

“It’s a lame proposal because most farms of any size operate as a corporation,” said Schoesler. “On top of that these tiers make no sense, except they’re consistent with the whole premise of cap-and-trade – or ‘cap-and-tax,’ as it should really be called. This law is about punishing people who use fossil fuel. It’s as though they think there are electric combines down at the farm-equipment dealer.”

Dozier agrees the tiered approach is not realistic. “One tractor pulling a heavy load can go through 25 gallons of fuel an hour. At that rate just one week of 10-hour workdays will blow past the 1,000-gallon threshold.

“It’s not difficult for a farm to go through 30,000 gallons of diesel in a year. Under this proposal, that’s 11 cents per gallon. Adding more tiers based on 10,000-gallon increments would be a slight improvement, but if the intent is to honestly compensate users who have been paying the surcharge, the payments to them should really be gallon for gallon, with no tiers at all.”

The Senate budget proposal also includes $35 million to provide low-income households with energy utility bill assistance. Like the payments proposed for farm-fuel users, those subsidies would be funded with proceeds from the cap-and-trade law, which has enabled state government to rake in about $1.8 billion in the past year from auctioning “carbon allowances.”

“In December the governor proposed using cap-and-trade money to subsidize low-income households. It wasn’t a surprise to also see it in the Senate budget. But this money to pay farm-fuel users feels like something thrown in at the last minute by people who don’t understand agriculture,” said Schoesler.

“This is a pretty responsible budget proposal overall, and I appreciate that Republicans had a fair amount of input about the priorities,” said Dozier, “but it needs some work to be a budget that truly respects the needs of agriculture.”

Three Schoesler bills move ahead before key Senate deadline

In the hours before a key voting deadline this session, the Senate unanimously passed three bills introduced by 9th District Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville.

Today is the first “floor cutoff” of the 2024 legislative session. Senate bills not approved by the Senate by 5 p.m. today are considered dead for the year. Bills that are deemed necessary to implement the state supplemental operating, capital and transportation budgets are exempt from this deadline.

SB 5344 – Helping school districts with construction-project costs

Senate Bill 5344 would create a public-school revolving fund that would be used to issue low-interest or interest-free loans to qualifying school districts for capital projects.

“We all know what a great success the state’s public works trust fund is,” said Schoesler, the Republican leader on the Senate capital budget, speaking before the vote on SB 5344. “We’re replicating that with this approach and hopefully improving access to very low-cost financing for at least a portion of our school construction. This will be good for small schools, medium-sized and bigger schools. It creates a place where we can place our money in the future and keep it recirculating back for school construction all across our state.”

SB 6162 – Excessive fees for locating abandoned property

Senate Bill 6162 would add a penalty for excessive fees for locating abandoned property held by a county. Under the proposal, someone who violates the prohibition on excessive fees for locating and recovering unclaimed property held by a county would be guilty of a misdemeanor and would face 90 days jail, a fine up to $1,000,  or both.

Schoesler dubbed it a “technical clean-up measure” that is a fix to an unclaimed-property law from 2023 in which the penalty for predatory practices on unclaimed property was inadvertently left out.

SB 6215 – Improving tax and revenue laws

Senate Bill 6215 would make administrative and technical changes to the state’s tax and licensing codes.

“This is my annual clean-up bill for the state’s tax and licensing codes,” said Schoesler. “We always seem to discover a few codes here and there that need to be updated and this is the latest clean-up measure for those codes.”

All three Schoesler bills move to the House of Representatives for further consideration.

Senate passes Schoesler bill helping restaurants, taverns with liquor licenses

A bill prime-sponsored by 9th District Sen. Mark Schoesler that aims to help restaurants, taverns and other establishments navigate the state’s permitting process was approved 47-2 by the Senate yesterday.

Under Senate Bill 5291, applications for liquor licenses or license renewals would be automatically approved if the state Liquor and Cannabis Board fails to issue a decision within 45 days of the application date.

Schoesler introduced the bill after hearing about the trouble that three small businesses in the 9th District – Sonny’s Tavern and Grill in Washtucna, and Mi Jalisco and the Ritzville Golf Course Café in Ritzville – experienced while trying to receive a liquor license from the state.

“I watched two small, minority-owned businesses struggle for three to eight months for a simple liquor license,” Schoesler told other senators prior to the vote on SB 5291. “Imagine, all you want to do is move your Mexican restaurant from one side of the community to the other. They’ve never done anything wrong, great people. Eight months to get their license.

“With this bill, we can ensure permitting. Imagine you’re opening a restaurant and bar. You’re moving to a better location. You have to have certainty to order food, hire people, pay them, all these things. This bill simply makes it easier to permit a small business.”

Schoesler’s floor speech on SB 5291 may be viewed here.

The proposal would allow the LCB an additional 30 days to issue a decision on an application if it determines good cause for the extra time exists and issues a temporary license during the extended time period.

SB 5291 now goes to the House of Representatives for further consideration.