OLYMPIA — Affecting farmland with new development would be parallel to snarling traffic, generating noise or harming air and water quality under legislation debated by lawmakers Monday.

State Senate Bill 6210, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Margaret Haugen of Camano Island, would add the question “Is there any agricultural land affected by the proposal” and six others related to the conversion of farmland to nonagricultural uses, impact on nearby farming and disruptions to soil and drainage to the checklist government agencies use to assess the environmental impacts of land-use proposals.

Under the State Environmental Policy Act, developers fill out the checklist and the relevant government — the city of Mount Vernon for a housing development, for instance — reviews responses and determines whether the proposal would have a significant effect on the environment and needs more stringent review or has no or little impact and can go forward.

Haugen’s bill was discussed Monday in the Senate Agriculture and Rural Economic Development Committee, of which she is a member. Mike Shelby, executive director of the Mount Vernon-based Western Washington Agriculture Association, was there to testify in favor of it.

“This Senate bill feeds right in to the process we have seen going on,” Shelby told the committee. “We have had a renewed and focused interest in the protection of ag lands.”

Representatives from the state departments of Ecology and Agriculture lauded the bill’s concept, but said they don’t have money to implement it.

“We think it is a great idea. We support the preservation of agricultural land,” said Gordon White of Ecology, which oversees the State Environmental Policy Act. But he added, “Technically, I cannot support it because it is not in the governor’s budget.”

A study of the bill’s financial impacts has not yet been completed, but White put the proposed legislation in perspective. The bill requires Ecology to adjust the checklist for the SEPA, and the last time any such tinkering was budgeted was 2003, he said.

The state’s financial woes also figured into debate on another farmland preservation bill proposed by Haugen. Senate Bill 6521, discussed in the same committee Monday, would require state agencies to complete an “agricultural impact statement” before acquiring an interest in agricultural land.

An analysis of the bill’s cost is not finished. Haugen said the proposed agricultural impact statement would be single page form inquiring about impacts on farming and would not require too much time or money. And, suggested Haugen, the process could save funds from being misspent.

She asked Shelby, who also testified on Bill 6521, whether a public process requiring analysis of impacts on farmland might have affected the Burlington-Edison’s School District’s decision to buy farmland outside Burlington that it cannot use or afford.

“Burlington School District, had they done an impact on that particular purchase, do you think it would have made a difference?” Haugen asked.

Shelby responded that a more transparent process may have made a difference.

As written, the bill would only apply to the state, not local governments. But the State Conservation Commission would be tasked with compiling the agricultural impact statements and reporting to the Legislature on how the state’s actions have affected farmland and whether local governments should also follow the process.

Neither Senate Bill 6120 nor 6521 was put to a committee vote Monday, nor had one been scheduled.

n Elliott Wilson can be reached at 360-416-2147 or at .

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