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Collection: Making Sustainability Legal

Reforming the White Pages

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Great news on the phone book front: Washington officials are proposing new rules that would end the state’s absurd mandatory delivery of white pages listings.

Even better, the state is proposing an “opt-in” system—meaning you won’t be saddled with a white pages book unless you ask for one—which is the least wasteful, least costly, and least annoying way to handle things. It’s a rule change that would be consistent with actions taken in many other states:

18 states have opt-in systems for white pages

With business as usual, white pages listings are a tremendous waste. Changing the rules to a statewide “opt-in” system would mark a step toward a more responsible use of resources.

But it may not happen without public support. Although virtually the entire telecom industry supports the change—as does Sightline and Seattle Public Utilities—there’s a risk that the rule will get rejected or watered down to a much less effective “opt-out” version (in which you would have to specifically tell the phone companies you don’t want a phone book).

In fact, the state attorney general’s office opposes any version of the rule change—opt-in or opt-out—arguing in favor of mandatory white pages delivery.

What can you do to support a more sustainable phone book law?
It’s easy actually. Just send a quick email to the state regulatory body that’s handling the rule change, simply and politely asking them to adopt the proposed rule. You can reach them at records@utc.wa.gov (and be sure to include “Docket UT-120451” in your comments).

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Hair-Braiding Featured in the Oregonian

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Sightline’s work on deregulating hair-braiding requirements in Oregon got a big boost on Sunday: a cover story in the Oregonian.

Front-coverage is a huge step for getting the law fixed. As we’ve written about before, hair braiding is just one of many industries where licensing rules are making it harder for some folks to earn a living.  In many cases, those rules may have once made sense; but as they’ve evolved, they now do more to protect current license-holders than to benefit consumers. Removing unnecessary license requirements would make it easier to find work and a boon to the Northwest’s economy.

Seattle Reforms Outdated and Unhelpful Regulations

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It’s been almost a year since the idea took shape, but yesterday the Seattle city council unanimously approved a smart package of regulatory reforms that Sightline has been supporting. The reforms give a boost to urban sustainability by making it easier to build walkable and affordable communities and by encouraging small-scale entrepreneurship.

Councilmember Richard Conlin deserves plaudits for ably guiding the rather complex (and occasionally controversial) legislation through committee and across the finish line with the full council.

So what does the new law do?

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Replacing an Unsafe Fire-safety Test for Couches

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Man sitting on burning couch

Editor’s note: This post is a compilation of a series of posts on toxic couches, taken from Sightline’s latest report on Making Sustainability Legal. This week, California’s Governor announced an end to the 12-second rule—a move which should pave the way to homes that are better protected from both fires and hazardous toxics. Sightline will be keeping a close eye as the state considers alternative flammability standards.

The test is simple: 12 seconds exposed to a small flame like a cigarette lighter. If the furniture foam doesn’t burn, it passes the test and can be sold. If it burns, it fails and cannot. That’s been California’s trial by fire for furnishings—its “flammability standard”—since 1975.

Unfortunately, this obscure rule turns out to cause an inordinate amount of toxic harm. Worse, it does this harm without providing any benefits. The rule may have made sense in 1975, when fire-safety science was young, but it’s long past its sell-by date. Simply deleting it from the law books in Sacramento would send benefits up the coast to the Northwest and beyond. Replacing the rule with a new flammability standard developed by the US Consumer Products Safety Commission and called a “smolder test” would do even more good.

The 12-second rule applies to the foam in couch cushions—not the fabric, just the foam. It also governs the foam in other furnishings such as chairs. And it covers foam-padded child-rearing equipment such as crib mattresses, nursing pillows, and strollers.

Because California is the biggest US market, manufacturers tend to treat the 12-second rule as a North American standard. They don’t want different foam formulas for different states and provinces, so most of them make everything to pass the 12-second rule. Consequently, wherever you sit in Cascadia, you’re probably on foam manufactured to pass the 12-second rule.

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Is It Fair to Make Phone Books Optional?

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Ending Washington’s regime of mandatory white pages delivery is common sense. Sightline, Seattle Public Utilities, Dex, CenturyLink, and many other telecom entities in the state support the idea. The state attorney general opposes it for two apparent reasons. The AG argues, first, that optional delivery of white pages would be a threat to public safety—a silly argument we have addressed previously—and, second, that optional white pages would prevent equal access to telecommunications.

Let’s take up that second argument—the equity dimension of white pages delivery. Is it fair to make delivery of the white pages optional?

Certainly, revisions to the white pages law should protect the public interest, and that probably means providing access to print directories for those on the analog side of the digital divide. It’s easy for everyday web users to forget that access to the Internet is not equal. According to the FCC, access rates are lower than average for black and Latino households. Rural residents, older people, and low-income households are also less likely to have high-quality access to the web.

Fortunately, it’s easy to ensure that anyone who wants a phone book can still get a free copy, using either an “opt-out” or “opt-in” system.

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Getting Out of Work’s Way

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Alan Durning: Food Handler

This post is an excerpt from Sightline’s recent report, Making Sustainability Legal: Outdated Rules that Stop Affordable, Green Solutions.  It is an update of our October 2011 post on work licensing rules in the Pacific Northwest.

Alan Durning: Food Handler
Photo courtesy Cynthia Savers

I got my Oregon Food Handler’s Badge. It took 52 minutes online and cost $10. Now I can work legally in Oregon restaurants!

If, however, I wanted to work braiding hair African-style in Oregon, or kickboxing for prize money in Washington, or selling timeshares in Montana, or promoting concerts in Alaska, or as an athletic trainer in Idaho or as scores of other things across the Northwest, I’d have to endure a more onerous licensing process.

Much more onerous.

Consider African-style hair braiding. As an article in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times points out, licensing rules in many states place tremendous and unnecessary burdens on would-be hair braiders. Oregon is one of those states. To braid hair for money in Oregon legally, I would need (in addition to actual braiding skills—no small thing), a hairstylist or barber license. Earning a cosmetology badge requires 1,700 hours of training and classes. That’s often two years of coursework, and it costs thousands of dollars. But this schooling is largely irrelevant to African-style hair braiding.

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Can Seattle Make Sustainability Legal?

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Seattle is a city paved with good intentions. Take a look at our plans and our resolutions and you’ll find three values common to just about everybody here, political leaders and residents alike: economic opportunity, environmental leadership, and social justice.

That’s what we say, and I think we mean it.

It’s just that we don’t always do such a good job of living up to our aspirations.

For years—for decades, really—Seattle has rightly prided itself on best-in-class planning and remarkable forward thinking. The city’s Comprehensive Plan, called “Toward a Sustainable Seattle,” sets forth a vision with just these values in mind. Just so, the many neighborhood plans do much the same for local communities, marking out constructive steps to improve Seattle’s best places.

Or consider Seattle’s soon-to-be-updated Climate Action Plan and Carbon Neutral Seattle initiative, which the Council recently adopted into the city’s Comprehensive Plan. These are bold leadership pieces that most other cities can only dream about. Not only that, we have the Bicycle Master Plan, the Pedestrian Master Plan, the Transit Master Plan, and the Seattle Planning Commission’s Affordable Housing Action Agenda. More recently, the council adopted Resolution 31282, setting forth a detailed and progressive strategy for economic growth.

Economic opportunity, environmental leadership, and social justice. These are broadly shared bedrock values. In various forms and in various ways they’ve been blessed by council after council, and mayor after mayor.

That’s why it’s so disappointing to watch the city struggle with the “regulatory reform” initiative. (Here’s a summary, a slide show, and the full legislation.)

If we want to be the city that we say we do—one that provides economic opportunity, environmental leadership, and social justice—we need to make changes. Some of the changes will be big. But some can be small, and that’s what the regulatory reform package is all about.

I don’t want to diminish the sincere concerns felt by some folks about one element of the proposal that has since been deleted (allowing small-scale commercial uses in multifamily residential zones). But at the same time it’s important to understand that the regulatory reform initiative is really about mostly minor fixes to existing law. Such as:

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Would Optional White Pages Delivery Really Threaten Public Safety?

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In Washington, white pages phone directories are delivered to each and every phone customer. They’re delivered about once a year. And—most curiously—they’re delivered in spite of the fact that neither the phone companies nor most of their customers even want them.

Yet you cannot stop the white pages because Washington State law says that phone companies must deliver them to you. Sightline and numerous others, including telecom companies, would like to change the law to give consumers a choice.

Unfortunately, the state Attorney General’s Office opposes changing the law. In comments recently submitted to the regulatory body that is considering changing the law, the AG’s office makes what I think is an incredibly flimsy argument:

A printed copy of the White Pages directory remains a fundamental component of basic telephone service… The lack of a printed White Pages directory may jeopardize public safety if a consumer does not have easy access to emergency numbers or government listings… Public Counsel recommends against elimination or modification of WAC 480-120-251…

That’s nuts, for at least two reasons.

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Your Wheels, on the Bus: Puget Sound Edition

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Earlier this year, I shared my stroller-on-the-bus hell story. The villain in the tale was surprising: King County Metro, otherwise a hero in my book. Like many transit agencies across North America, Metro says kids cannot stay in their strollers on board buses—and that policy is a giant problem for families with babies and toddlers. Unpacking a stroller, folding it, and hauling everything onto a transit vehicle even one time is enough to convince many parents never to attempt a bus ride again.

Well, guess what? Dozens of Metro drivers on dozens of Metro buses already welcome aboard moms and other caregivers pushing their kids in prams: no stroller folding necessary. No rogue pram guerrillas, these drivers do so in accordance with their orders from above. So do certain drivers at the county transit agency in neighboring Pierce County, which also bans loaded strollers.

Contradiction? No. Sound Transit, the Puget Sound regional express bus service provider, has strong pro-stroller policies on most of its vehicles, including not only its light-rail cars but also most of its buses. (Exceptions are the tall, narrow-aisled, Greyhound-like vehicles it sends up and down I-5.) And Sound Transit contracts with King County Metro and Pierce Transit to operate its buses.

All that Metro and Pierce Transit need to do to catch up with North America’s stroller-friendly leaders is to tell all of its drivers to do what some of its drivers already do: follow Sound Transit’s stroller rules.

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Report: Making Sustainability Legal

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We’ve been cleaning out the fridge for nearly a year now, and we’ve compiled our list of moldy, past-their-prime laws into a handy new report.

It’s all in there, from freeing taxis and food carts to legalizing car sharing and clotheslines. Plus, we’ve cataloged three success stories, where outdated rules have been brought into the modern age.

Download the full report, or get the two-page summary to take to your next cocktail party.

There’s lots more work to be done.

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