SEATTLE. The King County Prosecutor's Office is asking the Washington state Legislature to turn its plan for cracking down on copper wire theft into law next year, KUOW reported, as high copper prices make the metal more lucrative to steal and public officials look to make stolen copper harder to sell.
Right now, sellers face little paperwork when offloading a box of copper odds and ends to a recycler. Under the prosecutor's proposal, recyclers would have to take a photo of sellers, their copper and their IDs.
Attorney Gary Ernsdorff explained at a press conference Monday that the data would be uploaded into an online database searchable by law enforcement, so a detective with a burglary report could use it to try to find the goods and the thieves.
According to KUOW, the proposal is modeled on similar rules that successfully reduced demand for stolen catalytic converters.
Ernsdorff said the legislation would carve out exemptions for sellers with legitimate copper to sell, targeting the transactions most likely dealing in trafficked material and excluding commercial transactions with a known manufacturer providing recycled materials from its shop floor.
He said the idea was first proposed last year, but some metal recyclers raised concerns about a significant administrative burden and the proposal died. Since then, he said, at least one of the recyclers that spoke out has been burglarized by metal thieves.
The proposed law could get another chance in the 2027 legislative session, which begins in January.