The 2026 Olympia Legislative Session – It Could Have Been Worse
By Jordan Royer, Vice President External Affairs, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association
On March 12th, legislators were released from their 2-month short session that, to many, felt like a lifetime. It featured a 24-hour floor debate in the House to pass an income tax on those earning more than $1 million, as well as finding cash for a $2 billion shortfall. While Democrats have firm control, all levers of state government, they managed to do quite a lot of fighting amongst themselves. During this year’s elections, the cracks in the party will be on full display as young challengers line up to challenge more experienced moderates. Also, are we likely to see a wave of retirements as nobody likes 24-hour floor debates?
From an industry side, some harmful bills died in the early going. There was an effort to create a new inspection regime for vessels in the Department of Ecology, complete with an ever-growing ship fee. And a bill to adopt California-style at-berth plug-in rules. The good news is that neither bill became law. While this was the second session in a row that they were introduced and failed, there is an old saying in Olympia though: “if you’re going to have a heart attack, do it there because nothing ever dies in Olympia.”
For transportation funding, the best that can be said is we survived intact and are staying the course. There was no additional money for new projects and the focus was all on maintenance and preservation.
In the off-session period between now and January, we will continue to educate legislators and the Governor about our issues. Working with the Washington Public Ports Association (WPPA) and the Washington Maritime Federation (WMF), we will continue the work of development of a statewide trade strategy to improve the competitiveness of our ports.
Unfortunately, state lawmakers don’t know that the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle have seen a 20 percent loss of cargo over the last 20 years. Attracting that cargo back will take everyone working together ensuring common sense regulatory rules are in place that are consistent with federal and international rules, and that unnecessary costs are avoided. Legislators can help with all these goals and we hope that in the next session we can move forward collaboratively and not have to continually fight bad public policy. A lot will depend on who is coming back to Olympia in January. All eyes will be on Democratic elections in November.