Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is mostly happy with how state agencies are dealing internally with reducing their carbon emissions, but he still believes they must speed up their efforts.

Agency officials agreed last week during a virtual briefing with the governor.

“Whatever we’re doing, we have to have higher ambitions because we’re not meeting our goals,” Inslee said.

Hanna Waterstrat, director of the Office of State Efficiency and Environmental Performance in the Washington Department of Commerce said, “The science indicates our targets need to be accelerated.”

The biggest shortfall of those related to charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, the briefing revealed. Currently, 81% of the roughly 5,000 state-owned vehicles are hybrid gas-and-electric. Three percent of all the vehicles, including trucks and vans, are totally electric, while 7% are totally electric. The inadequate number of charging stations require electric cars to rotate through them rather than all being able to recharge overnight simultaneously.

The state needs to analyze its electric charging systems to come up with numbers, budgets, installation plans and policies, including allowing agencies to use each other’s chargers, said Kelly Lerner, chief of leased facilities and maintenance for the state’s Department of Social and Health Services. 

“We need to have standard charging systems and policies rather than agency-by-agency systems. … I want to accelerate transitioning to electric vehicles,” Inslee said.

“We need the money for the infrastructure first,” Lerner said.

Building for Net Zero

In Spokane, the state government recently completed its first net-zero building. The 6,200 square-foot structure is a garage and storage building for the Department of Ecology’s emergency response team for the state’s 20 easternmost counties. The team covers hazardous spills, methamphetamine labs and illegal marijuana operations. 

The building includes rooftop solar panels. However, the team’s vehicles are still gasoline-powered because potential hazardous sites could be beyond the round-trip range of an EV, said Sam Hunn, the department’s spills response supervisor for Eastern Washington.

Meanwhile, the state government is looking at constructing the first zero-emissions building on the Capitol Campus in Olympia — a daycare center for the children of state employees.