SUMMARY OF LIQUOR CONTROL BOARDS I-502 RULE MAKING SEPA REVIEW PROCEDURE The Washington State Environmental Policy

Act is intended to require that agencies follow procedures to assess potential impacts so that the public will be fully informed and the future will be shaped by deliberation, not default. Records disclosed by the Washington State Liquor Control Board under the Public Records Act show that the I-502 Rulemaking process was conducted behind closed doors with only a perfunctory, after the fact SEPA document issued to justify prior agency action, a clear violation of the letter and intent of SEPA. The Boards own records reveal the Board never intended to conduct any type of SEPA review on the I-502 rulemaking and implementation until after the rules were drafted. All of the I-502 rulemaking timelines and schedules prepared by the Board omit any mention of SEPA, and there was no plan to conduct any SEPA review whatsoever until, in late June of 2013 the Board was told by DOE that SEPA review was mandatory. (See LCB Rule Making Process diagram) At this Point, after the I-502 rules had been established and circulated clandestinely without disclosure to the public, the LCB determined that it would issue a Determination of Non Significance and an environmental checklist at the same time. The LCB then belatedly issued a DNS to justify the rulemaking action that it had already taken. Significantly, a late as July 25, the LCB failed to have an Agency Rulemaking File available for review,
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a violation of RCW 34.05.370, the APA and the full disclosure requirements of SEPA. What the LCB finally produced to attempt to evade the requirements of actual SEPA review was an ad hoc justification for their prior action in adopting the I-502 rules which had been complete and were secretly circulated in draft form by the LCB in mid-June in an attempt to short circuit the public review process. Despite being informed about SEPA by counsel as early as January 16, 2013 (See Exhibit 1, redacted January 16, 2013 Email to the LCB from Bruce Turcott) the LCB failed for 5 months to do anything to follow required SEPA procedure, and in fact, engaged in a secret political process where the first draft of their rules was covertly circulated among a select group of agencies prior to its disclosure to the public on July 3. As part of this preliminary covert circulation process, the DOE issued a comment letter of June 7, (See Exhibit 2, I-502 Initial Draft Rule Comments) where, under general comments it raised the issue of a SEPA determination for the I-502 Rules. The Department of Ecology, under the section General Comments askedDid LCB complete or consider a State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review for the rule making process or was a decision made that an exception in the SEPA rules precluded the need to complete a SEPA? (See Exhibit 3, Comments on Initial Draft Rule for I-502 Implementation, page 2) Subsequently, on June 10, Albert Salvi of Ecology wrote to Mike Steenhaut of the LCB Since you have not really thought about SEPA up til now, I would encourage you to talk with Annie. (See Exhibit 4, June 10 Email)
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On June 17, Steenhaut wrote to Mungia Following up on our meeting today here is the SEPA contact at Ecology. Based on her understanding of our draft Annie thinks there would be some risk if we didnt conduct a SEPA review prior to filing the official CR 102 (See Exhibit 5, June 10 Email) This Email, sent at 4:49 P.M. on June 17 was followed by three redacted communications of 5:08, 5:34, and 5:48 P.M. respectively. (See Exhibit 6, redacted June 17 Emails) Following these communications, Ann Sverzec of the DOE was somehow selected to shepherd the LCB through the DNS process, and, apparently, to produce a Determination of Non Significance to justify the I-502 rules that had already been written. It is apparent that when the LCB did finally learn that it would have to follow SEPA, it attempted to cobble together a DNS to justify the action it had already approved, and completely failed to follow any procedure to actually review any potential impacts. In fact, the checklist and DNS appear to have been written at the same time, mostly ghostwritten by a DOE employee for the LCB. On June 24-25, under the subject CONFIDENTIAL: I-502 Rules, Annie provided Ingrid with sample DNS supporting documents to plagiarize for the LCBs DNS, and Ingrid sent the most recent version of our rules, which she cautioned Annie to conceal... As I mentioned before, this version has not been released to the public so if you could keep this confidential that would be appreciated (See Exhibit 7, CONFIDENTIAL: I-502 Rules Email) On June 25, the enigmatic Mr. Turcott again communicated with Ingrid, but, alas, this too has been censored. (See Exhibit 8, redacted June 25 Email) Various further communications were exchanged, between Sverzec
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and Mungia, demonstrating a complete lack of agency expertise on the part of the LCB. (See Exhibits 9-13) Based upon the LCBs own records, the SEPA DNS issued for the I502 rulemaking is a classic case of agency secrecy, ignorance of SEPA, and finally, an inadequate SEPA Determination of Non Significance issued after the fact to justify a prior action that undoubtedly has the potential for significant adverse impacts. Substantively, the LCBs agency record has not yet been compiled and the one defective BOTEC white paper (See Exhibit 14, Stranger Article) cited to support the LCBs determination is entitled Risks and Opportunities of Cannabis Cultivation, which by its very title is limited to cultivation and does not support a DNS. Even the most glaring conflict with federal law is ignored, and no worst case analysis or consideration of alternatives was conducted. The foreseeable impacts of the implementation of I-502 are far greater than those identified by the LCBs flawed procedure, (See appended SEPA Comment) and a proper SEPA review should be conducted by the Liquor Control Board for the implementation of I-502.

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