Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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In China, the government has launched an “eat more potatoes” campaign – and Washington state could benefit as a result. China’s potato push is in part an environmental effort to provide more clean drinking water for its exploding urban population and offset its polluted water from factories and inadequate sewer treatment. Home to more than 1.3 billion people, China has until recently enjoyed a decades-long economic boom that raised more than 600 million people out of poverty, according to World Bank statistics. Urbanization i...
Imagine rolling into Olympia in your travel trailer each year for the start of the legislative session knowing your district has the highest unemployment in the state and the lowest average annual wage. Folks in your sprawling rural 7th District earn between $15,000 and $20,000 less than the state average wage. Stevens, Pend Orielle, Ferry and Okanogan counties are rich in minerals and have abundant forests and natural public grazing lands, but over the years mining, logging and lumber mill jobs dried up, in large part due...
Recently, activists paddled a flotilla of kayaks – made from petroleum products – into the Seattle harbor in an attempt to blockade a Shell Oil offshore drilling platform destined for the Arctic. Then activists in Portland suspended themselves from the St. Johns Bridge – using all sorts of equipment and supplies made from petroleum products – in an effort to stop Shell’s ice breaker from leaving a local shipyard. Their goal was to stop Arctic oil exploration. But oil and gas exploration in the Arctic has been happening...
The Obama Administration announced it will begin providing Pell grants to federal prisoners, effectively overturning a 1994 ban on the practice. While overturning the ban requires Congressional action, the administration is circumventing Congress by designating the plan a “pilot program.” If allowed to stand, the administration’s unauthorized action would be costly to taxpayers. From 1972-95, before Congress issued the ban, inmates received $34.6 million a year in Pell grants. Under the new pilot, prisoners will recei...
Unfortunately, Seattle Congressman Jim McDermott (D) was correct earlier this year when he said Canada’s west coast ports are “eating our lunch!” Both Washington and British Columbia are blessed with deep water seaports that are closer to Asian markets than those in California, the Gulf states and our nation’s eastern seaboard. There is a rich trade tradition in the Northwest, and for many years, the ports of Seattle and Tacoma were preferred by shippers because they could move large volumes of cargo rapidly. However...
There was a time when wine connoisseurs looked with distain on wines produced in the United States. Then, when California wines gained popularity, those made in Washington were viewed with skepticism. Wines fermented in Chile, Argentina and Australia were dismissed for years before finally being stocked on store shelves. Well, in the years ahead, you may see Chinese wines appearing in America and they may compete with Washington’s award-winning fine red wines. Surprisingly, some wines produced in China are getting good r...
Dr. Elson Floyd leaves big shoes to fill at Washington State University. He was just 59 when he died of colon cancer on June 20. From the day he stepped onto the WSU campus in 2007 he was determined to make big changes, and he did just that. In his short eight years as WSU president, he pushed higher education along faster than universities are accustomed to moving. He began by taking a page from Gov. Gary Locke’s playbook. In 2003, Gov. Locke (D) turned the state’s budget process upside down by establishing the “pr...
Yakima Valley farmers have the same problem as their California counterparts: there just isn’t enough water for crops, migrating fish and people. In California this year, an estimated 564,000 acres of prime cropland will be left unplanted because of the fourth straight year of drought. Economists at the University of California, Davis estimate the drought has caused $2.7 billion in economic losses and cost 18,000 farm workers their jobs. The water shortage is so acute in California that Gov. Jerry Brown ordered a 25 percent r...
Some may remember the infamous Seattle billboard: “Will the last person leaving Seattle turn out the lights?” The billboard appeared in April 1971 after Boeing shed 60,000 jobs at its Puget Sound plants. The collapse spurred the state to diversify its economy. Seattle, in particular, has become one of the world’s hubs for software, health care and life sciences research. One of the key ways to stimulate innovative life sciences research is the Life Sciences Discovery Fund (LSDF). Established in May 2005 to help attract life...
Connecticut is in a deep financial pickle and is in danger of seeing a mass exodus of businesses looking for states where taxes are lower and private sector employers are welcome. Connecticut, a state of 3.6 million people, just passed a two-year $40 billion state budget, which is roughly the amount Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) and lawmakers in Olympia are grappling over. But an accumulation of tax increases has Connecticut taxpayers steaming and looking to leave. This is what happened. Right after Gov. Dannel Malloy (D)...
In Olympia these days, lawmakers are high centered in a second special session over the budget to operate the state for the next two years. The stalemate has come down to the choice of raising taxes or funding government within the current revenues. Gov. Jay Inslee and fellow Democrats call for a new 5 percent capital gains tax they estimate will generate another $550 million. In addition, Inslee has proposed a new billion-dollar tax scheme on carbon emissions. On the other hand, Republicans believe the projected $3.2...
Over the last few years, one of the remarkable successes is the record salmon returns to the Columbia River and its tributaries. Conversely, one of the biggest disappointments is low recovery of delta smelt in San Francisco Bay. To protect the smelt, a federal court ordered that water be flushed into the San Francisco Bay – 1.4 trillion gallons since 2008. That was enough water to sustain 6.4 million drought-stricken Californians for six years. Yet a survey of young adult smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta l...
While protesters were trying to block a Shell oil rig from docking in Elliott Bay, a team of surgeons and nurses at Vancouver’s Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital was replacing my left hip. Interestingly, the tools used in both places primarily came from raw materials made from coal, oil and natural gas. Some of the Seattle protestors were in a flotilla of kayaks – boats made, ironically, from petroleum-based products. Their attempted blockade is the latest chapter in a larger campaign across the nation to eliminate fossil fuels. B...
There’s an old saying that people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The moral is that before criticizing others, you should make sure your own house is in order. Companies, such as REI, supporting Gov. Inslee’s climate change legislation should heed that advice. REI is an iconic Northwest retailer of high-end outdoor gear popular with nature enthusiasts and millennials. REI has been a big booster of Gov. Inslee’s climate change agenda, which pits Washington businesses against one another. The company hosted...
The Longshoremen’s work slowdown that snarled west coast ports for nine months is over, leaving behind bitter memories and billions in economic damages. But the global trends that foreshadowed that port disruption remain. Big container ships are coming to Washington ports and they are behemoths. Stand one upright and it would be taller than the Empire State Building. A decade ago, the world’s largest container ship sailing into the ports of Seattle and Tacoma carried 9,600 20-foot containers – enough to hold 1.3 milli...
To many, giving President Obama more authority is a bad idea. However, regardless of how you feel about him, the President of the United States needs the power to negotiate trade agreements. The issue before Congress is a bipartisan bill granting the President’s trade negotiators the power to help write the terms of trade agreements. Senators Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) brokered the deal, which hopefully make its way through Congress. World trade creates 38 million American jobs, 846,000 in Washington. Our s...
Imagine you have a product that customers love. It’s top quality, affordable and meets or exceeds all state and federal benefit standards. Better yet, your product fills a void in the marketplace that left people vulnerable and unprotected. Now, half a million people in Washington use your product and your customers gladly buy it year after year. Nevertheless, a government regulator steps in and tries to put you out of business. Why? That’s a good question. The product we’re talking about is health insurance coverage for p...
Ever since the $15 wage proposal was narrowly approved by City of SeaTac voters, municipal leaders in neighboring Seattle have pushed to impose the same edict. Washington already has the nation’s highest starting wage of $9.47 an hour and the state legislature is considering hiking it to $12, but Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and some city leaders want to peg it at $15. Starting April 1, large businesses in Seattle – defined as those with more than 500 employees – will be required to raise the minimum wage they pay their emplo...
Folks in the Pacific Northwest may not like what Matt Ridley has to say, but we should consider his points about energy. Ridley, a British journalist and author of several popular books on science, the environment and the economy, is a businessman and member of the House of Lords. He is often shunned because he owns land where coal is mined. Recently, Ridley wrote in The Wall Street Journal that while oil, gas and coal have problems, their benefits are beyond dispute. He advances three reasons for not giving up on fossil...
Washington has the nation’s highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour and now the state legislature wants to hike it to $12. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D) wants to boost it to $15 to go in step with the SeaTac initiative, which voters barely approved last year. The state’s minimum wage has been adjusted annually since 2001, based on a Seattle-area cost of living index. From 2008 through 2013, Washington’s minimum wage increased more than 14 percent. Washington voters thought passing an initiative 14 years ago would make life bette...
California is in the midst of a fierce water war, a conflict that holds lessons for us in Washington state. In many ways, we are alike. Both of our states’ populations are growing and we have some of the world’s most prolific agriculture regions which require lots of water. Washington is served by a vast network of storage reservoirs that make up the Columbia River drainage. It stretches from the northern Canadian Rockies to as far south as Wyoming. On the other hand, California with its 38 million people has series of res...
The fierce competition between Seattle’s Alaska and Atlanta’s Delta airlines is spilling over to the Port of Seattle, and it may reach your wallet in the form of higher airfares. The Port commission, which manages Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, must decide whether to build a new international arrivals terminal at the south end of the airport or expand the north satellite to accommodate additional domestic flights. At this point, there isn’t the money to fund both. The commission puts the international terminal as it...
The IRS scandals just keep on coming. First, the agency targeted conservative groups seeking non-profit status. Originally characterized by IRS officials as a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, the practice was later revealed to be a politically-motivated campaign coordinated by Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Unit. Then, Lerner’s infamous “missing” emails blocked investigators’ efforts to discover if the White House was involved. Now, the Internal Revenue Service is under fire for using federal...
In his State of the Union address, President Obama highlighted plunging gas prices. Ironic, since Obama has done everything in his power to curtail domestic oil production and drive up gas prices. For example, the president wants to lock up untapped federal oil reserves surrounding the Trans-Alaska pipeline. If he succeeds, he will choke off future oil supplies to the pipeline, bleeding it dry and forcing it to shut down and be dismantled. That will not only hurt Alaska, but Washington and the Pacific Northwest as well. Refin...
For the first time in American history, entrepreneurship is in decline. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, businesses are dying faster than they’re being formed. Each year, 400,000 new businesses start up nationwide; 470,000 close their doors. Gallup reports that in the 1980s, business startups outpaced business failures by about 100,000 per year, a trend that continued until the 2008 recession. Now, after six years of sluggish economic recovery, the entrepreneurial death rate in the U.S. is outpacing its birth rate. In f...