(1) The purpose of this chapter is to implement the provisions of the GHG emissions cap and invest program created by RCW 70A.65.060 through 70A.65.210. The provisions of the cap and invest program implemented by this chapter establish a declining cap on GHG emissions from covered entities consistent with the limits established in RCW 70A.45.020, and a program to track, verify, and enforce compliance with the cap through the use of compliance instruments.

(2) Ecology will engage with the environmental justice council. Ecology acknowledges and recognizes there are communities that have historically borne the disproportionate impacts of environmental burdens and that now bear the disproportionate negative impacts of climate change, and the legislature specifically empowered the environmental justice council to provide recommendations to ecology on the cap and invest program.