Bait and switch: Inslee gives highway projects funds to fish

OLYMPIA – Governor Jay Inslee’s 2021-23 proposed state transportation budget calls for a shift of hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation funding to pay for court-ordered fish passage projects.

A 2013 U.S. District Court injunction requires the state to significantly increase the effort for removing state-owned culverts that block habitat for salmon and steelhead by 2030.

“Drivers have the right to be upset by Inslee’s proposed shift of highway-project funding,” Senator Mark Schoesler of Ritzville said.

Schoesler said when he joined about two-thirds of the Legislature in passing the...