The Energy Facilities—Site Locations Act (EFSLA) is the primary statute that regulates our work. In addition, there are a few other state statutes that apply to some energy facilities that we oversee. 

We adopt rules to govern the formal and informal procedures that we will follow in the application of the statute.

At times, we inform the public about the approach to our work through policy statements. The Council will discuss and formally adopt these policies at public meetings so that the public has better awareness about our processes.

In June 2025, we published an update to Policy 16-01 related to delegating authority for certain plan approvals to the director. As part of that process, we held a public comment period from June 16 to June 22, 2025. Council members discussed the policy at the June 2025 Council Meeting and determined an edit to the policy was necessary based on public comments received. As a result, we edited the draft policy update and held a second comment period from July 10-14, 2025. The Council adopted the revised version at the July 2025 Council Meeting. In November 2025, we revised the policy again to offer a clarifying amendment, which the Council adopted at its November Council Meeting after consideration of comments submitted during the November 3-16 comment period.

Events related to adoption of Policy 16-01 in 2025

November 2025 Public Comment: Second Update to Policy 16-01 Delegation of Authority
July 2025 Public Comment: Update to Policy 16-01 Delegation of Authority
June 2025 Public Comment: Update to Policy 16-01 Delegation of Authority

In 2018, Governor Jay Inslee asked the newly appointed EFSEC chair to undertake a strategic and policy review of the agency. Working with EFSEC staff and gathering input from a wide range of stakeholders, we sent the governor a completed report on March 28, 2019.