In our previous blog posts in this series, we reviewed the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) on its five-year anniversary, and how expanding Washington State’s carbon market through linkage might dramatically change how the law functions. Now we will talk about the air we all breathe and how Section 3 of the CCA, if leveraged responsibly, could be a powerful tool to center frontline communities’ health when it comes to the clean air we all deserve.
In summary: Section 3 of the CCA is an opportunity to stop harm
If the Climate Commitment Act as a whole is about carbon, Section 3 is where we find out who actually benefits. It’s where the law finally starts talking about the air people actually breathe. And that’s because Section 3 includes provisions that we—frontline communities—fought to ensure were included in the CCA.
Section 3 is the acknowledgment—written directly into statute—that environmental justice requires more than a carbon cap. It establishes a mandate for the state’s Department of Ecology to address the disproportionate impacts experienced by communities that have been historically overburdened. That means that Section 3 creates opportunities to:
- Push for mandatory pollution reductions, not just monitoring
- Demand facility-specific accountability
- Insist on clear timelines and enforcement
- Ensure community voices shape implementation, not just consultation processes
- Normalize cumulative impact analysis as an expectation, not an exception
- Build administrative precedent that equity considerations belong in air regulation
But even though Section 3 gives the Department of Ecology direction, realizing its potential to create positive change for frontline communities depends on how agency staff implements it. How aggressive will pollution reduction requirements be? Which facilities will be covered? What timelines will apply? What accountability measures exist if emissions don’t actually go down? There’s a real risk that Section 3 becomes a procedural fix rather than a substantive one—we may end up seeing a lot of planning, reporting, and modeling activities, but very little work being done on enforceable pollution reductions.
Below we’ll get into how Section 3 relates to the rest of the CCA, what we like about this section of the law and why we are engaging with it, and ways communities should get involved.
Let’s get into it:
The Climate Commitment Act’s cap-and-trade program focuses on carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases. But frontline communities aren’t primarily harmed by CO2—they’re harmed by an entire host of co-pollutants: hazardous air pollutants that are emitted alongside CO2, like particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, diesel exhaust, and more. These pollutants, commonly referred to as “criteria air pollutants,” are emitted by industrial facilities, freight corridors, and ports. A cap-and-trade system that lets companies buy allowances to pollute could lead to pollution “hotspots”: places where emissions of both CO2 and pollutants remain concentrated because polluters choose to buy an allowance rather than reduce their pollution at the source.
Section 3 is the state’s attempt to address this contradiction, but this section only exists because frontline communities, advocates, and organizers did what they could to incorporate environmental justice into a law that was never designed to include it. The result is a rule section in the CCA that carries real tension, real limits, and a real opportunity to demand clean air and accountability. It acknowledges a fundamental problem with cap-and-trade: that reducing greenhouse gases at the statewide level does not automatically reduce toxic air pollution in frontline communities—and without guardrails, it can make community health worse.
We want to make it clear that Section 3 doesn’t magically fix the underlying problems with the CCA. It acknowledges the hotspot problem, but doesn’t guarantee that it’ll be solved. For example, it doesn’t automatically override the law’s treatment of emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries (EITEs). Facilities receiving free allowances due to their EITE status may still operate in overburdened communities unless additional requirements are imposed through rulemaking or enforcement.
What does Section 3 get right?
Section 3 is one of the few places in the Climate Commitment Act where environmental justice principles move from rhetoric into enforceable obligations. It moves the conversation from abstract targets to lived experience.
Without explicit air quality protections, the CCA risks becoming a climate policy that looks successful on paper while leaving frontline communities behind. Section 3 directs the state’s Department of Ecology to go beyond just carbon accounting and actually address criteria air pollutants in overburdened communities:
- Section 3 requires Ecology to use the state’s Environmental Health Disparities Map to identify overburdened communities facing the highest cumulative pollution burdens and to develop strategies to reduce harmful emissions where action is most needed. This alone is a major improvement from previous approaches that treated pollution as evenly distributed.
- Section 3 gives Ecology a clear mandate to address criteria pollutants, not just greenhouse gases. This is vital because reductions of particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide in the air translate directly into fewer asthma attacks, heart problems, missed school days, and premature deaths.
- Section 3 creates a legal hook. Once the state acknowledges pollution hotspots and commits to taking action, communities have something concrete to point to and avenues for taking action if agencies fall short.
- Section 3 is where the state Environmental Justice Council’s can play a critical role. They can review agency actions, call out gaps, and keep pressure on Ecology to deliver real outcomes. Council meetings also provide a platform for communities to state, on the record, that “This process is not enough; here’s why; now adjust accordingly.” All of that matters when future funding fights, statutory amendments, or enforcement challenges arise.
In other words, Section 3 is where the state admits that cap-and-trade alone will not improve air quality or health outcomes frontline communities.
What is rulemaking?
Requirements in Section 3 of the Climate Commitment Act led to rulemaking for the Air Quality in Overburdened Communities rule (WAC-173-448). But what is rulemaking?
While the Washington State Legislature writes and passes laws, state agencies are often tasked with figuring out how those laws work in practice, when they are being implemented. This process is called rulemaking.
As you might expect, state agency staff can exercise their discretion during rulemaking—within the limits of the law, of course—in ways that can deeply affect how that law works in practice. That is why it is so important that the public provide their input on rulemaking whenever there are opportunities to do so.
Under the CCA, the Department of Ecology is required to do rulemaking for the Air Quality in Overburdened Communities rule, developing detailed regulations that shape implementation and enforcement. This requirement is meant to ensure that implementing the CCA doesn’t allow pollution to simply shift or concentrate in frontline neighborhoods.
Arguably the most important feature of Section 3 is the set of tools it provides that frontline communities can use for leverage. These tools determine whether equity considerations will meaningfully shape air quality outcomes or remain procedural by forcing the questions:
- Where are carbon emissions actually coming from?
- Who is being exposed to pollution?
- Are pollution reductions happening where the harm is occurring? If not, what are we going to do about it?
For example, if a community near a refinery or freight corridor continues breathing in harmful air pollution even as the state meets its overall climate targets, Section 3 gives advocates a framework to push for action. Community groups could submit public comments, get involved in rulemaking, engage with the Environmental Justice Council, or potentially take legal action to argue that the state is failing to address localized impacts in frontline communities. If effective, this advocacy could lead to stronger monitoring, targeted pollution reductions, or additional agency action focused on local conditions rather than statewide averages alone.
Why we engage with Section 3, and how you can join:
Section 3 will not deliver justice on its own, nor will it undo historic pollution exposure patterns or guarantee meaningful reductions in harm. But as stated in our previous blog posts in this series, we don’t engage with the Climate Commitment Act because we think markets will save us. We engage because there are tools like Section 3 that create opportunities and leverage we can use to improve health and well-being for frontline communities.
The language of Section 3 is a written acknowledgment that we cannot expect benefits from carbon markets to trickle down to frontline communities. It forces the state to confront pollution where it’s happening. And it opens a door—not wide enough, not automatically—but enough for us to make change. We can’t walk away one of the few opportunities that exist in state law where equity is even partially recognized as a regulatory concern.
Whether or not Section 3 produces meaningful change will depend far more on implementation than on aspiration—it will depend on political pressure, interpretive choices, enforcement decisions, sustained community organizing, and, if necessary, litigation.
From an environmental justice perspective, if frontline communities were to step away from the table, we would be letting the discretionary decisions of state agency staff be guided solely by industry influence and institutional inertia. Engaging would help ensure that the state exercises the authority it already has to address pollution in frontline communities and that communities are on the record demanding equity commitments beyond procedural fixes. Engaging with Section 3 is integral to our efforts to secure cleaner air and a healthier environment for all Washingtonians.
If you are interested in supporting our work to improve air quality and health outcomes through Section 3, please join our general mailing list! Back in February, Front and Centered, in partnership with organizations both inside and outside of our coalition, submitted our input to Ecology regarding its rulemaking for the Air Quality in Overburdened Communities rule (read our comment letter). Ecology is now rewriting its language based on public input and we are waiting for the revised rule to be published. Once the revised rule is available, we will let our mailing list know and recommend next steps.