Mayor Bruce Harrell signed landmark building emissions performance standards (BEPS) into law this week after months of dragging his feet on climate action. 

The new standards require 4,100 of the city’s largest existing buildings, including retail space, multi-family homes, and community centers to reduce how much planet-poisoning emissions they pump into our air. According to the Mayor’s press release, BEPS will slash about 325,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which amounts to a 27% decrease in building-related emissions. While Seattle’s biggest environmental enemy remains single-occupancy vehicles, the decrease in emissions caused by the new standards equates to taking more than 72,000 cars off the road for a year. Do that next, Harrell!

Supporters of BEPS—unions, climate groups, the Housing Development Consortium, and others—will tell you this policy has been a long time coming. The BEPS legislation dates back to the Durkan administration when then-mayor Jenny Durkan directed the Office of Sustainability & Environment to draft such legislation in 2021 to be implemented in 2022 under the incoming Mayor. Harrell introduced a weaker version of Durkan’s policy in June of this year, but environmentalists accused him of slow-rolling the standards because he did not transmit the legislation in time for council to pass it ahead of budget season. They thought his slowness would put the fate of BEPS in the hands of the incoming council because the council typically does not pass policy during the budget process or in the few remaining weeks after. 

Some thought the Mayor abandoned BEPS because the Unholy Trinity of corporate interest—Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Seattle Association, and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association (NAIPO)—wrote him a whiny little letter begging him not to implement BEPS because it could hurt the corporate landlords they represent while downtown tries to bounce back from the pandemic. 

If the Mayor wanted to do his political allies a solid, the new Mayor-aligned council would likely support him, as most of them won their seats backed by the same interests. 

Though the Mayor’s spokesperson said Harrell remained committed to passing BEPS, Council Member Kshama Sawant accused him of killing the bill in a September 11 council briefing when the Mayor failed to transmit the BEPS legislation in time for her Renters Rights and Sustainability committee to discuss it that week as planned. 

“I can only assume that this legislation is being held back at the request of the wealthy owners of Seattle skyscrapers and other power players, who yet again are prioritizing their real estate profits over the existential crisis of the climate emergency,” Sawant said in the briefing. “This is nothing new.”

Council Members Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda shared in her frustration, suggesting the council write its own bill instead of hoping Harrell presses send. 

But eventually, things sorta fell into place, Herbold said. The Mayor’s office approached Herbold and asked her to shepherd the legislation. With time running out, Herbold could not make many changes. However, she did make the penalties for non-complying buildings harsher, which landlords agreed to if the City dealt pro-rated penalties—if a building complies halfway, they face half of the penalty. 

Still, as Mosqueda said, the council heard from stakeholders that “now is the time to rally around this legislation. Don’t amend it. Get it through. We all know there’s things we’d like to see added or changed in different ways, but this is the building block for future climate action.”

In their jam-packed final meeting of the year, the council passed the legislation 8-0 with Sawant absent.