LATEST BLOGS
Riparian report: 'volunteer or else'
In the 1970s, “not in my back yard” was shortened to NIMBY in the context of power companies in New Jersey and Michigan to build nuclear-powered generators. It has persisted since as a shorthand for people to support ideas as long as they do not have to bear the burden of their implementation.
Such was the case in 2022 when Washington state’s agricultural and rural communities were blindsided by a trio of NIMBY bills that would have established riparian buffer zones aimed at salmon recovery. All three bills specifically targeted land in agricultural and rural communities. All three bills specifically exempted land in urban and suburban areas including waterways around parks, roadways, and housing developments. All three bills mandated riparian buffer zones so large they would have consumed many of our state’s farms in their entirety.
Read the entire blogMisleading statement suggests both parties wanted WA Cares when they didn’t
When Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, opened a recent work session for the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, she said that the state's law on long-term care was passed by the Legislature on a “bipartisan basis.” As Inigo Montoya said in "The Princess Bride," “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The law that created WA Cares, proposed in House Bill 1087, cannot be described as bipartisan legislation. By the time the bill made its way through the legislative process, it was passed on a party-line vote in the House of Representatives and had just one Republican senator voting in favor of it. The closest the bill got to bipartisan support was in opposition to it.
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CO2 tax supporters' latest effort to hide cost is badly flawed
According to AAA and GasBuddy, Washington state gas prices are about 25 cents per gallon more than Oregon. In December 2022, the prices were virtually identical. That gap is almost exactly the amount of Washington’s CO2 tax, imposed by the Climate Commitment Act (CCA).
This is not a surprise and matches the experience in California and elsewhere where CO2 taxes have been imposed. Despite that, tax supporters continue to claim it is having just a minor impact on prices.
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