Washington State RV Plan Approval Process Bill Moves Forward

Following the public hearing earlier this month in Washington state, House Bill 1514—which amends the statewide RV plan approval process—has been voted unanimously out of the House Committee on Labor & Workplace Standards.

House Bill 1514 now moves to the House Rules Committee. The RV Industry Association’s Government Affairs team will be working to expedite the bill’s process through the Committee to ensure it can be considered by the full Washington State House of Representatives in the near future.

The Issue

From 2021 and throughout 2022, the RV industry experienced significant delays in RV plan reviews because of staffing issues at the Washington Department of Labor and Industries, Factory Assembled Structures Division. These issues created a massive backlog of RV plans and caused a disruption to RV commerce.

RV plan approval by the Department Labor and Industries is required for RV manufacturers to purchase Washington State RV insignias. These Washington State RV insignias are required by Washington statute to sell an RV in the state of Washington. Because the state could not perform its responsibility and approve plans, RV manufacturers were unable to purchase and subsequently ship RVs to Washington RV dealers in a timely manner. Washington RV dealers ultimately lost business, as consumers went out of state for the products their in-state dealers did not have.

The Resolution

To resolve this issue, RV Industry Association Senior Manager Nick Rudowich testified at the February 1st public hearing in support of an amendment (Revised Code of Washington 43.22.350) to the Washington RV plan approval process (House Bill 1514). Although improvements to the process are already in place, this amendment would make those changes permanent. During his testimony, Nick announced that RV manufacturers can purchase insignia on submission of plans to the state. RV manufacturers must have a state approved quality control program and pay the required fees of plan submission to the Department of Labor and Industries.

In addition, this year the RV Industry Association will host quarterly webinars in conjunction with the Department of Labor and Industries to switch the RV industry from physical plan submission to digital. The RV industry did not use digital plan submission in the past because the digital plan submission process was more costly to RV manufacturers than physical submission. Due to recent fee changes digital submission has become the cheaper option.

“We thank Prime Sponsor Robertson, Chair Berry, and the rest of the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards for moving forward on House Bill 1514 expeditiously,” says Rudowich.

Those interested in viewing the hearing or learning more about the bill can visit the Washington Department of Labor and Industries’ website here. For questions on this issue, please contact Nick Rudowich at nrudowich@rvia.org.