WREN Testimony Has Impact!

WREN President Sue Lani Madsen had an opportunity to sit in the wings of the House of representatives in Olympia on March 4, 2025. The House was in session and a legislative staff member passing through came over to say he appreciated WREN’s testimony on a bill establishing a Wildland Urban Interface Fire Working Group. “We changed the bill after your testimony,” he said.  Slots for two rural voices were added to the working group. Confirmation the WREN’s song makes a difference in Olympia!

Here’s the backstory. The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a public hearing on February 12, 2025 on HB 1539. The following is a link to the original TVW video and the transcript for the WREN testimony, with time stamps.

https://tvw.org/video/house-agriculture-natural-resources-2025021226/?eventID=2025021226

01:04:22 (WREN) Good morning committee and for the record Sue Lani Madsen, president of the Washington Rural Environmental Network, a group dedicated to amplifying rural voices in the public policy arena. And I'm testifying other today to raise points of improvement for HB 1539.

The structure of this work group is well thought out, standard issue, but it does not have a process for meaningful input from citizens who have been affected by these kinds of insurance issues.

Rural residents have been declared uninsurable simply because of the age of their residences. The property owners who have suffered losses in any recent wildfire could also provide meaningful input to this committee.

And so I would like to see the committee expanded and language added to make sure that there's a useful diversity of voices included in the work group because the best solutions come out of best questions asked early in the process.

This is a very fast timeline for this report to come out in December.  I am happy to work with the committee and working out how to get that input into the work group and with the sponsors to work on language of an amendment that would provide for that meaningful input.

Again, I encourage you to make sure that this is not just focused on the needs of the insurance industry and on the point of view of the insurance industry, but also on those who have had claims, who have been denied insurance and who have the consumers perspective. Happy to answer any questions.

01:06:02 (Committee Chair Rep. Kristine Reeves) Thank you so much Ms. Madsen. It's good to see you again. There are no questions for you, but we definitely know where to find you and look forward to following up.

01:06:11 (WREN) Thank you, Madam Chair.