SPOKANE, Wash.- A bill which would direct the Washington Department of Commerce to create a disaster relief payment program to assist communities damaged by wildfires passed the State House on Feb. 13. 

HB 1899, which narrowly avoided the cutoff for bills to make it out of their house of origin during this legislative session, now awaits introduction in the Senate. 

If passed, the policy would create a program which would give financial aid to homeowners, businesses and local governments who have their property lost or damaged during wildfires. It comes after a historically destructive fire season in the Evergreen State. 

Representative Mike Volz (R),  the bill’s primary sponsor, originally intended for the bill to allow property owners to choose whether they adhered to updated energy and construction codes when rebuilding from wildfires. 

A substitute version of the bill which passed the House on Tuesday focused on subsidizing rebuilding efforts rather than exempting property owners from code updates. Voltz argued that the substitute was inferior to his original version. 

“It could take more than a year, or even longer to receive assistance. That's going to leave a lot of people hanging. If they had passed the bill in its original form, it would have made a real difference immediately,” Voltz said.

The new version of HB 1899 would exempt residential building repairs from limited portions of state code pertaining to the use of propane tanks as secondary heating sources, but does not grant wider code exemptions. 

The bill passed the House with nearly unanimous support and will need to move through a Senate Committee before appearing on the floor for a full vote.