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AN ORDINANCE creating the King County Metro transit carbon offset program; requiring the wastewater treatment division and the solid waste division to be carbon neutral by 2025, by investing in energy efficiency, renewable energy, the production of renewable energy, carbon offsets and other practices to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from operations; and adding a new chapter to K.C.C. Title 28.
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STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. King County places a high priority on reducing the environmental footprint of King County operations.
2. King County has been a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its operations.
3. Transportation accounts for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions produced in King County.
4. In 2012, King County adopted the Strategic Climate Action Plan required by Ordinance 17270, which states the county has an overarching climate goal is to partner with its residents, businesses, local governments and other partners to reduce countywide greenhouse gas emissions by at least eighty percent below 2007 levels by 2050.
5. In 2014, the Growth Management Planning Council, which includes elected leaders from King County and its cities, unanimously adopted a new countywide planning policy to reduce countywide sources of greenhouse gas emissions by twenty-five percent by 2020, fifty percent by 2030 and eighty percent by 2050, compared to a 2007 baseline.
6. King County also has an overarching climate change goal to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions from government operations, compared to a 2007 baseline, by at least fifteen percent by 2015, twenty-five percent by 2020 and fifty percent by 2030.
7. The transit division has a significant and beneficial impact on the region's greenhouse gas emissions and displaces roughly four times more greenhouse gas emission than it generates, which is a net displacement of approximately six hundred thousand metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year.
8. The operations of...

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