Tag Archives: washington state

Business, Environment, News

Coal’s Long Black Trains Are A-Comin’ on Downtown, Seattle

Coal train traveling though Seattle (Photo: MvB)

Slowly but surely, Seattle is waking up to coal trains. Normally, the Pacific Northwest crows about its trade relationships with China, but in the case of coal shipments, the crowing has become more of a dry, irritated cough.

Political fights over new terminals dedicated to coal were the first to crop up. But as people have had the chance to see the mile-plus-long trains click-clacking by, cars uncovered so that coal dust can blow off along the whole route, opposition to the whole prospect has stiffened.

In August, the Seattle City Council came out in favor of Congressman Jim McDermott’s proposal to form a Coal Mitigation Trust Fund–a $10 excise tax on every ton of coal mined in the U.S. would go to pay for “adverse impacts.”

Earlier, in May, the Council passed a resolution to the effect that they wanted nothing to do with coal trains and terminals, and that they’ll be watching very closely to determine if there are issues with public safety. Now, Mayor McGinn is putting pressure on the Port of Seattle to address the “environmental, health, and economic harms” he says the coal trains bring with them.

Coal trains also made an unlikely appearance during the Great Arena Debate of 2012, when arena proponents wondered why the Port was so little concerned with the traffic impacts of, as Publicola summed it up, “16 and 18 trains per day (one every 75 to 90 min, basically), each potentially 1.5 miles long, taking roughly three to seven minutes to pass through the seven train crossings—from Spokane Street to Wall Street—in Seattle.”

Even sleepy Ballard has gotten into the act. A story in the Ballard News-Tribune noted that the coal trains “would be passing through Sodo, the Olympic Sculpture Park, up Interbay, across the Ship Canal by Ballard Locks and past Golden Gardens and beyond. Estimates say that it would stop traffic for an extra two hours a day.” (BNSF wrote in asking for corrections to the story: For one thing, they said, they’re already shipping tons and tons of coal through town on its way to Canada and it’s never bothered anyone; it would only be 18 trains, not 20; and some trains might not go through Ballard at all.)

The sustainability-pushers over at Sightline, besides exploding the “low-carbon coal” terminology, help explain why shipping coal to China has taken on such urgency. The domestic market for coal has taken a huge hit as energy-producers switch to cleaner natural gas. Reports Clark Williams-Derry, “the nation’s electric utilities used 18 percent less coal in the first half of 2012 than they did in 2011, and 27 percent less than they did during the peak year, 2008.”

News, Politics

After 7 Years, Governor Gregoire “Gets” Gay Marriage

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Governor Gregoire

“It’s time, it’s the right thing to do, and I will introduce a bill to do it,” lame duck Washington state Governor Gregoire said yesterday, announcing her intention to bring legislation permitting same-sex marriages in our state. “I say that as a wife, a mother, a student of the law, and above all as a Washingtonian with a lifelong commitment to equality and freedom. Some say domestic partnerships are the same as marriage. That’s a version of the discriminatory ‘separate but equal’ argument.”

If the bill passes the Legislature, Washington would be seventh in allowing gay marriage, after Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, in addition to the District of Columbia.

Reactions were predictable. Publicola quotes State Representative Matt Shea (R-4, Spokane Valley), whom they call the “lead social conservative in Olympia’s GOP caucus,” saying: “I am surprised same-sex marriage is a primary focus of the Democrats when the Legislature still has a 1.5 billion dollar budget shortfall to address as we enter the short 60-day, 2012 legislative session.”

Quite right! Let’s take a look at Shea’s work in that regard, courtesy of Publicola’s bullshit-detecting skills:

For his part, Shea is sponsoring bills: requiring parental notification for abortion; undoing the federal mandate on health care; exempting firearms from federal regulations; restricting the use of unmarked law enforcement cars on private property; and sending a message to President Obama demanding that he honor the 10th Amendment (states’ rights).

Oh, the sweet, sweet irony.

Meanwhile, The SunBreak inbox filled up with Seattle-side support for the Governor’s bill. On this point, at least, Mayor McGinn and the City Council agree. “I look forward to the moment when Seattle can join cities like Boston, New York and Washington D.C. in celebrating marriage equality,” said McGinn.

The Council’s Tom Rasmussen said, “The City of Seattle is on record supporting marriage for same sex couples and we will work with the Governor for passage this year,” while Sally Clark added, “We have work before us in this legislative session and beyond, but Gov. Gregoire’s is a critical voice in recognizing that all people are created equal and should be treated as such by their government.”

“The Governor,” reports the Seattle Times, “rejected the notion that she’s free to back same-sex marriage now because she’s not running for re-election.” There is some evidence that, as she suggests, Washington has been warming to the idea. The Times also quotes state senator Ed Murray, joking about the relative strength of ideological convictions: “I can get Republican votes for marriage, but I can’t get a Republican vote for a tax increase. Suddenly, gay marriage becomes easier than raising taxes. I never thought I’d say that.”

Business, News, Politics, Travel

Craziest Budget Cut by Washington State Legislature in 2011?

“The Picasso show at SAM last year generated $66 million for Seattle; half the museum-goers were from out of town,” writes Ronald Holden at Cornichon, in a post in defense of Seattle tourism marketing.

But last July Washington State made the New York Times for closing down its tourism office, becoming “the only state in the nation with no statewide tourism office and no state money to promote itself to travelers.”

“Tourism is the fourth-largest industry in Washington,” noted the Times.

When the state tourism office was shut down, its budget was $1.8 million against the $50 million budgeted by British Columbia or California. California expects to have made some $104 billion from tourists during 2011, which seems a reasonable return.

Travel spending in Washington State (Image: Dean Runyon Study for Washington State tourist office)

In 2010, tourists spent an estimated $15 billion in Washington State, resulting in almost $1 billion in additional tax revenue. That Seattle is a draw will surprise no one, but Washington State is large and offers a multitude of get-away-from-it-all excursions, from its coast to Eastern Washington wineries to the Columbia River.

The state’s tourism office, when it still existed, found that travel and tourism had significant impacts in rural areas:

In 2009, the six counties with more than 10 percent travel-generated jobs were all non-urban. Further, the 14 counties with more than six percent travel-generated jobs were also non-urban. Travel spending generates more than 15 percent of local sales and lodging taxes in eight counties, all of which are non-urban.

Ironically, the tourism office’s reward for success was falling under the budget axe. Though their budget was slashed the last few years, tourism dollars appeared relatively unaffected–at least from a tax-revenue viewpoint. It appears that a majority of legislators did not ask themselves if adding funding for tourism, the state’s fourth largest industry, remember, was an obvious way to increase revenue. They may not have eaten the goose that laid the golden eggs, but they seem to think that starving it is an ace idea.

While keeping in mind that steady increase in tourism dollars charted above, you also want to keep in mind how hard it is to maintain top-of-mind awareness. Treading water isn’t attention-getting. There’s an easy (if unscientific) way to get a glimpse of what people are interested in, and it’s free: Google Trends. So take a look at the results for “Seattle” and “Washington State.” The last eight years show an unbroken decline in search volume. (Not true of Amazon or Nordstrom or Starbucks, but true of Microsoft and Boeing as well.)

This story is something to keep in mind when you hear howling from the State Capitol about our dire economic situation. Many budgeting issues are complex, but this one is not. If your attempts to fix a decline in tax revenue involve, short-term, defunding offices that have been providing increases in tax revenue, you are doing it wrong. The sooner the Governor and Legislature stop working against our state’s fourth largest industry, the better.

Health, News

What’s the “Philosophy” Behind Babies Coughing to Death?

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Graph: Washington Department of Health

Recently the Center for Disease Control released a vaccination coverage study with good news and bad news. The good news was that the vaccination rate for kindergarteners nationally was over 90 percent. The bad news is that Washington State had the highest percentage of children excused by parents, 6.2 percent, or 5,015 kid-sized disease vectors.

WebMD reports the the “vast majority” of Washington parents who excused their kindergarteners from vaccinations did so on philosophical grounds. The site quotes Michele Roberts of the Washington State Department of Health: “Chickenpox outbreaks are a continual problem in our state and last year two infants died of pertussis [whooping cough]. In these cases there was not enough community protection to protect these infants.”

In Washington, the department of health notes in a pertussis fact sheet, “The rate of disease in infants under one year of age, 27.1 per 100,000, remains higher than rates in all other age groups.” As of last year, Washington began flirting with the epidemic threshold for whooping cough.

As much as I’m drawn to emphasize what an act of violence it is to use language to describe this virulent combination of know-nothingness and self-centeredness as a “philosophy,” what really needs to be underlined here is the suffering and deaths of children.

The CDC doesn’t track the hours parents listen to their infant cough itself into pneumonia and brain damage, but surely that needs to be weighed in the balance with whatever “philosophy” promotes bringing back the host of scourges vaccinations protect us from. (It’s probably not coincidental that Washington’s rate of unvaccinated kindergarteners doubled during the years of vaccinations-cause-autism misinformation.)

As it happens, this July a new law will require opting-out parents to supply a note from a licensed health care provider, as evidence that despite having heard the benefits and risks of vaccination, they still prefer to put the lives of their children and others at risk.