Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
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Contrary to the claims that Washington state is a “leader” in clean energy jobs and investment, the state lags badly behind most other states and has one of the worst records in the country. These dismal numbers contradict claims that Washington’s CO2 tax, known as the Climate Commitment Act, would spur growth in that sector. In fact, the states with the largest increases in clean energy jobs and investment don’t have CO2 taxes or aggressive climate policies. Business friendl...
Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is considering a change to the state’s recently adopted premium change transparency rule. A press release from the Office of the Insurance Commissioner says, “The change would be specific to Phase 2 of the rule — the automatic inclusion of reasons for premium increases in policy renewals — and would move the timing of that action from June 2027 to June 2029.” Goodish? The rule applies to auto and home insurance policies. (Insurers...
Washington’s agriculture is a $12.8 billion business with 33,000 farms — and it runs on gasoline, diesel, and natural gas. The hundreds of big rigs hauling crops and food products are not electric. Even though new trucks have reduced CO2 and other pollutants, some politicians are hastily charging ahead to replace fossil-fueled trucks with unproven technology. According to 2021 Environmental Protection Agency data, transportation was responsible for 30 percent of gre...
Were the Seattle legislators who said that farmers could afford to pay the state’s new CO2 tax right after all? A recent report from the Washington State Department of Licensing shows just 6.5 percent of funds set aside for farmers to collect a rebate on fuel taxes assessed by the Climate Commitment Act (CCA) have been accessed. State Senator Joe Nguyen (D-Seattle) mentioned the low number of farmers applying for the rebates recently, highlighting it as evidence that the i...
What image comes to mind when you hear “rural Washington?” Fields, farms and forests. Small towns. Flyover country. The frontier. Tribal homelands. Rangelands and desert. Public lands playground. Home. Welcome to the WREN, where rural means all of these. Our goal at the Washington Rural Environmental Network is to bring a diverse chorus of rural voices to the table when public policy discussions impact our rural communities. We want a voice in sharing the development of our homelands. You can follow and support our work at...
When President Biden warned FEMA does not have enough money to finish the hurricane season let alone the entire year, it was surprising. Suddenly, we discovered federal disaster relief money may be insufficient for future hurricanes, wildfires, and earthquakes relief. The frequency of major hurricanes and massive wildfires is draining federal accounts, and replacement funds only add to our soaring national debt. That debt is weighing on our ability to operate our national...
Is Critical Race Theory being taught in Washington public schools or not? In 2021, the Legislature passed, and on May 5th that year Gov. Jay Inslee signed, Senate Bill 5044 to require the teaching of “...equity, cultural competency, and dismantling institutional racism in the public school system.” This is the academic description for Critical Race Theory. The bill was implemented through the Washington state learning standards using the “Ethnic Studies Framework.” Academi...
Recently state schools superintendent Chris Reykdal announced that he plans to ask the legislature for another $2.9 billion for public education. This would be on top of the current $20.1 billion education budget. Like the changing leaves of Fall, every year around this time Reykdal asks for more money. Let's ask ourselves, Will pouring in more money make a difference to children? The data shows the answer is "No." For years the state has increased education spending, and the...
We already know workers with middle and upper incomes most often benefit from the state’s paid family and medical leave fund. It’s also true that many beneficiaries are repeat users, and that those benefiting more than once have higher wages than one-time users. I asked the Employment Security Department how many people have filed more than one claim for taxpayer-paid time off, work given the pattern I know with childrearing — kid one and kid two usually come within a few y...
In 2021, the Biden Administration passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included a provision to give $42.5 billion to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program to provide under-served and rural areas with internet access. To date, it has connected nobody. The plan required U.S. states and territories to submit plans for investment and deployment by the end of 2023, which all have done. Expected roll out won’t occur until 2026 by most optimistic d...
America needs a statesperson of the stature, capability, and perspective of Daniel J. Evans as our next President. Dan Evans died on September 20 at the age of 98 after serving as our state’s three term governor, two term U.S. Senator, a state legislator and in many prominent civic and public positions beginning in the late 1950s. He was political and partisan, but Evans was pragmatic, tough and a problem-solver. He was a visionary who was not afraid to take a risk even if it...
Whether you call it a ban or a significant deterrent to future natural gas consumption, voter approval of Initiative 2066 (I-2066) in Washington may be only the first giant pothole to fill. The next one in the road ahead may be a hefty tax on natural gas. In 2019, Berkeley, Calif., became the first city to prohibit natural gas connections in new buildings. San Jose, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and others followed. However, last year the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal...
All the increased costs Washingtonians experienced during the past year were accompanied by a $1.3-billion hit on workers’ paychecks. The widespread pay decrease in Washington state was compliments of a new payroll tax that began in 2023 to fund a program called WA Cares. In a recent meeting, the Employment Security Department told the Long-Term Security and Supports Trust Commission not to get used to higher-than-expected income, in case wage and employment information c...
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have joined in an agreement to award their Electoral College votes in a U.S. election to the winner of the national popular vote. The National Popular Vote compact, NPV as it is called, has gained steam over the past 25 years, lead mostly by liberal leaning states eager to work around the Electoral College. The legislation, which is identical in each state, requires the state to award its electoral votes to the candidate who...
Most down ballot elections draw little attention, but not this year when it comes to Washington’s Public Lands Commissioner. Heading into the November balloting, former Congresswoman Jaimie Herrera-Beutler, a Republican from southwest Washington, faces Democrat King County Council member Dave Upthegrove, who in the last primary election recount, had a razor-thin edge (51 votes) over Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson. It has been the closest statewide Washington election in two d...
At their Aug. 15 meeting, members of Washington state’s ongoing Universal Health Care Commission talked about recommending further expansion of, and money for, a Medicaid-like program for low-income adults who are undocumented immigrants. The program, called Apple Health Expansion, is shouldered by Washington state taxpayers alone, unlike Medicaid. Medicaid is funded by a federal-state partnership and is not available to people who entered the U.S. unauthorized or who were l...
An extensive study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research concludes that universal basic income, the government gifting of taxpayer dollars, doesn’t have the effect that proponents of forced re-distribution of wealth would have hoped for. In fact, the opposite is true. A universal basic income promises a government guaranteed income which is supposed to improve the economic situation of those receiving the money, typically median or lower income families. The s...
Kelly Ortberg’s appointment as new Boeing CEO and the company returning its headquarters to Seattle are promising steps toward rehabilitating the aerospace giant started over a century ago. The Seattle Times editorial summarized it best: “Dare we hope?” Ortberg has a sterling reputation, vast aerospace experience, and a record of accomplishment. Hopefully, his experience and success pave the way for Boeing to re-emerge as the pinnacle of aerospace---where it was before the C...
Our national debt is spreading out of control like a raging wildfire. Among other things, that added liability impacts our ability to fight those fires and reforest those scorched woods and range lands. Replanting trees is necessary to prevent erosion, provide clean drinking water, reduce CO2, protect fish and wildlife habitat, and rehabilitate public open spaces. It is very costly and under current funding schemes, the money is not available. Our national debt just surpassed...
In basketball, when an opponent is trying to steal the ball from you, teammates will shout, “wolf!” Last Friday the Washington State Fish & Wildlife Commission ignored the cries of “wolf!” from state agency and tribal scientists, livestock raisers, and others when they voted not to downlist or delist the gray wolf in Washington state. The predators which have enjoyed 15 years of population increases are still considered an endangered species after a 5-4 vote. The most recent...
I received some fantastic news last week! I received an email that read: “Hello Lou Marzeles.” (Okay, there should have been a comma after hello, but I’m a professional editor highly trained to notice such details in a world that drops punctuation and whole sentence errors by the dozen every second. I was willing to let that go. I figured they were just in such a hurry to share the good news.) “This is Mazie Reddit.” (Hm. Okay, another pause. Really? Mazie Reddit? Reddit is a website. And I’ve never heard of anyone with the n...
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce looked at the cost of regulations in America and found that excessive protocols are undercutting our economy and costing us jobs. Federal rules alone have exploded, and the Chamber says they cost $1.7 trillion. Unwarranted state labor and employment mandates resulted in a 700,000-job loss. On the other hand, paring back state regulations which exceed federal standards now spawns 50,000 new businesses each year. The Chamber report does not indict...
Scientific experts are prone to bias, overestimate their certainty and government systems are not good at adjusting to new science. Those admonitions come from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a statement addressing the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case of Charles C. McCrory v. Alabama. In the piece, Sotomayor asks what courts should do when faced with convictions "resting on science that has now been wholly discredited?" The question offer lessons for how...
The gray wolf population in Washington state set a reproduction record, growing by an astounding 44 animals in 2023. The state’s wolf population has increased for 15 years in a row and is now at its highest level since it was listed. The question is, what will it take for the state to change its management policy for the predators? Last year we proposed a state delisting of gray wolves in the eastern-most third of Washington state. We also proposed an incremental, local a...
The Loper family own Loper Bright Enterprises, a modest New England-based fishing business. They pursue the same dream shared by many Americans – to provide their customers with quality service at a fair price while making a good living. Recently, however, the bureaucrats at the National Marine Fisheries Service had other ideas. The agency’s budget was tight, so they decided to make the Lopers, along with similar family-owned businesses, pay for a government on-board ins...
