November 2005 -“Other Washington” Update: Pending Hanford Cuts
I spent much of the past week in Washington, D.C., at the invitation, and through the funding, of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
Senator Karen Fraser and Representative John McCoy (D., 38th District) were my fellow Washington State delegates at a multi-state legislative roundtable to discuss cleanup issues involving nuclear waste sites such as the 586-square mile Hanford site. We met with a handful of fellow state legislators from other states with nuclear waste sites – Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Intergovernmental meetings followed, with participation from the Energy Communities Alliance, Environmental Council of the States, National Association of Attorneys General Environment Project, National Governors Association’s Federal Facilities Task Force, and the State and Tribal Government Working Group.
Sen. Fraser is a member of the Senate Natural Resources, Ocean, and Recreation Committee and the Senate Water, Energy and Environment Committee. Having visited a number of nuclear waste sites, Sen. Fraser was recently quoted on cleanup issues in a NCSL policy magazine. I am a member of the House Natural Resources, Ecology, and Parks Committee. Rep. McCoy, who is also a Tulalip Tribe leader, was brought back to Washington, D.C., by NCSL especially to elevate tribal concerns surrounding nuclear waste issues. The Yakama Nation is one tribe with special interest in Hanford issues, for example.
In our meetings, including a meeting with an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy, we strongly communicated our concern over the Bush Administration’s proposed $64 million cut to Hanford cleanup for 2006 as compared to 2005, to which, while we were in D.C., a Senate committee proposed adding a $100 million cut. Additionally, the Bush Administration has a planned rescission, or recovery, of $100 million of 2005 monies yet unspent, but dedicated to future Hanford cleanup costs. So that means Hanford cleanup could see a $264 million reduction in resources in the coming year.
This is completely unacceptable
Even prior to these proposed cuts, Washington citizens, through passage by 69% of voters of Initiative 297 in 2004 (which sought to limit nuclear waste shipments to Hanford), strongly signaled their distrust of the federal government on nuclear waste issues. Further federal cuts are a breach of trust with our state, given the existence of the formal 1989 Tri-Party Agreement between the United States Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington Department of Ecology in which the federal government promised to meet deadlines in achieving Hanford cleanup goals. Under that agreement, a waste treatment plant is to be operating by 2011.
Cutting Hanford cleanup funding to ship more money to Iraq is ironic because, unlike in Iraq, evidence of weapons of mass destruction can be found in S.E. Washington. Beginning in 1943, through the 1980s, the Hanford site produced plutonium for nuclear weapons. Now the legacy of the Cold War needs to be cleaned up; S.E. Washington residents have sacrificed quite enough for our nation’s freedom without giving up even more. Washington jobs, and S.E. Washington’s economic vitality, are imperiled by the pending cuts. Moreover, the cuts threaten the ecology of our state, particularly the Columbia River.
Amazingly, a key Bush Administration priority is the development of more nuclear power plants. De-funding nuclear waste cleanup is a very peculiar path toward promoting this priority. Nor have we in Washington forgotten our “WPPSS” debacle, which electricity rate-payers are still suffering for.
In a press conference Monday, Governor Christine Gregoire stated, “Washington state will not sit idly by while the federal government breaks its commitment to the Pacific Northwest." Both of our United States senators have condemned the Bush Administration’s actions, with U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell noting: “The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to clean up Hanford.” According to a Tri-City Herald article, U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada helped preserve even more Hanford funds that would have been lost to Bush Administration cuts.
Olympia Postmark Issue
Also while in the “other Washington,” Sen. Fraser and I had lunch with U.S. Representative Brian Baird, discussing, among other things, the threat of losing the Olympia postmark.
Sen. Fraser, Representative Sam Hunt, and I have also sent a joint letter to our Congressional delegation communicating the following key concerns: (1) Loss of the postmark would be a blow to local civic identity; (2) loss of the postmark could cost up to $2 million a year in additional state government postage costs, because the state currently processes mail that would otherwise by handled by the U.S. Postal Service, earning a discounted first class mail rate; (3) state government mail could be delayed up to 24 hours, of critical significance where it involves financial/legal documents; and (4) increased traffic and air pollution along the I-5 corridor would only result from transferring Olympia’s outgoing mail operations to Tacoma.
U.S. Representative Baird has been very vocal in expressing his displeasure over this change in Postal Service policy that was made without any local consultation, including the absence of any discussion with affected local Postal Service workers. I encourage 22nd District residents to share their angst over this issue with U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Cantwell and U.S. Representatives Baird and Adam Smith.
October 2005 - In Search of “One Washington”: Part II
In my last e-memo I stressed the value in state representatives working hard to achieve statewide perspective on their duties. In pursuit of that objective, I recently traveled to Hood Canal and the Yakama Indian Nation.
HOOD CANAL
Yesterday I spent the whole morning touring timberland adjacent to the beautiful, but ecologically-troubled, Hood Canal with my seatmate, Representative Sam Hunt, and other members of the House Natural Resources, Ecology & Parks Committee, as well as members of the House Select Committee on the Hood Canal. It was an interesting opportunity to see the state’s Forest & Fish Law in operation, as the timber company that hosted us, Green Diamond Resource Company, has finished mapping, in the five years allowed by the law, over 3000 miles of road inventory, and will spend more time over the next ten years fulfilling its legal duty to mitigate the impact of those roads upon spawning salmon – by improving both road construction and culverts that allow streams in pass below them.
In the afternoon Rep. Hunt and I sat in on a hearing in Belfair of the Select Committee on Hood Canal, where water quality improvement in Hood Canal was the focus. We heard testimony facilitated by the joint efforts of the Puget Sound Action Team and the Hood Canal Coordinating Council. Water quality problems, centering upon low dissolved oxygen conditions, are due, in part, to leaking septic systems. Illustrating the complexity of the problem, among facts we discussed was the fact that garbage disposals increase septic tank nitrogen by about 10%.
A survey of homeowners in the Hood Canal watershed revealed widespread agreement that low dissolved oxygen was a problem, and general agreement that human sewage contributed moderately to significantly to that problem. There was, however, no great enthusiasm among those surveyed to pay personally to address the problem, either through voluntarily joining an onsite sewage management cooperative for $20 monthly (only 6% “definitely would”), or through the much more costly measure of connecting to a community sewage system at a hypothetical cost of $15,000.
Clearly, more study as to the causes of Hood Canal’s water quality issues is urgently, and expeditiously, needed, as well as education/participation of area residents regarding the steps – however challenging they may be – necessary to address whatever findings further scientific study produces. Hood Canal is simply too precious a resource to our state for its problems to be relegated to studies that will gather dust and produce no results. The state must stand ready to assist, and must work hard to avoid any perception it is forcing solutions upon unwilling residents.
YAKAMA INDIAN NATION
On October 14 I had the honor of touring the Yakama Indian Nation, which is a sprawling reservation of over 1.3 million acres (1,573 square miles) in the south-central Washington counties of Klickitat and Yakima.
Legislators joining me were Representative Brian Sullivan (D., 21st District), chair of the House Natural Resources, Ecology & Parks Committee, and Representative Dan Newhouse (R., 15th District), in whose multi-county district we were in.
Our tribal hosts, including the tribe’s Yale-educated natural resources director, a Yakama who grew up on the reservation, took us to parts of the reservation closed to non-tribal members to show us the tribe’s ecological practices.
In an all-day tour, we drove well over a hundred miles, primarily over roads fit for SUV commercials. Once you drive west of the tribal town of White Swan you come up into beautiful, hilly timberland. With timber production being a prime part of the tribe’s economy, the tribe takes pride in harvesting trees in a way that avoids clear-cutting and retains the appearance of forests.
Highlights included driving to the top of Signal Peak, almost 7,000 feet high, where we climbed atop a fire observation tower. There we could see a panoramic view of the reservation – including Mount Adams, half of which resides on tribal land.
While we were on this precarious perch, the tower vibrated as if an earthquake were occurring. Indeed, University of Washington seismography data shows that a 2.6 magnitude earthquake occurred at Mt. St. Helens (34 miles west of Mt. Adams) at 11:56 a.m. that day.
We also drove down a harrowing 22% grade to a state fish hatchery on the Klickitat River, which soon will be taken over by the tribe. The tribe plans on implementing the latest fish hatchery science there (for example, incorporating woody debris to provide shade) to increase the number of salmon spawning on the river.
The trip was important, because even though the reservation, as the tribe’s sovereign land, falls outside the state’s jurisdiction, its ecosystem is still a part of the “big picture” that the House Natural Resources, Ecology & Parks Committee is charged with understanding. It is critical that the state work hard to cooperate, on natural resources issues among others, with the tribes whose reservations lie within the state’s boundaries.
First Meeting of DD Residential Services Advisory Council
Last Thursday was the first meeting of the 13-member Developmental Disabilities Residential Services Advisory Council, upon which I represent House Democrats.
As I had reported earlier, the Council is tasked with studying whether state facilities for the developmentally disabled, like Fircrest in Shoreline, should be downsized or even closed. What was clear – even prior to our first meeting – was that the January 1, 2006, deadline for completing work was unachievable, given the political divide on this issue and the fact that our first meeting occurred so late. What we will instead aim for is compiling relevant data by January 1, and then the Legislature will extend the deadline for a full report as the Council assesses the significance of that data, as well as public and policy input, to its task.
My first impression was one of deep disappointment that state government, by failing to adequately fund programs for the developmentally disabled, has created an almost Darwinistic struggle between advocates of community residential care and those who advocate for those residing in the state facilities. I had seen similar struggles before in my professional long-term care advocacy prior to being elected to office. The state’s failure to lead should never pit vulnerable constituencies against one another.
A number of constituents have also expressed interest in the work of The Caring for Washington Citizens with Autism Task Force, another appointment of mine made by House Speaker Frank Chopp. Unfortunately, the Task Force had its inaugural meeting delayed, as appointments Governor Gregoire had to make were still being finalized. The meeting was rescheduled for November.
News from Rep. Brendan Williams
In Search of "One Washington"
As someone who travels the state considerably in my legal work, I can attest to the fact that the close gubernatorial election of 2004, with the contentious recount process that followed (where King County votes were decisive), appears to have only exacerbated the “Cascade Curtain” political divide between West and East in our state.
The angst East of the Cascades goes beyond the perennial introduction of legislation by a Veradale Republican senator to divide the state into two states (a bill that this year found a Seattle Democrat as a co-sponsor). It was given full voice on a number of occasions this past legislative session, such as when a Spokane Valley Republican representative, in opposing clean vehicle emissions legislation, cried out, “Let my people go!”
Rather than be dismissive of disunity, I think it is essential that we bridge that which divides us. We are one Washington. It was for that reason that I traveled to Ferry County last week as part of a House Natural Resources, Ecology & Parks Committee tour. Five House Democrats joined our host, Representative Joel Kretz (R., 7th District), to learn more about issues affecting his rural N.E. Washington district – which is geographically Washington’s largest. Interestingly, with the exception of our host representative, no other Republican representatives showed up.
At the Ferry County Courthouse in Republic, 341 miles from Olympia (a good 6.5-hour drive), where a doe was frolicking across the street, we learned more about a problem that, left unchecked, could be devastating to our state’s ecology and agriculture: Noxious, invasive weeds. One example given of a new “invader” was hoary alyssum, a member of the mustard family, which – like many such weeds – is toxic for livestock. An example of a longstanding invader is tansy ragwort, which I can recall pulling on my own family’s farms. In its good intentions, we found, state government has been a significant culprit in the proliferation of noxious, invasive weeds – as lands that the state has acquired have not been managed to quell the weeds as private lands have been. Compared to money spent on land acquisition, the state is spending a very nominal amount of money on those lands controlling weeds. The weeds then spread to private lands.
Later we had a forum on cougars with Department of Fish & Wildlife administration, a biologist, enforcement officers, and a county commissioner apiece from Okanogan and Ferry counties. Citizens in N.E. Washington are very concerned that a consequence of 1996 passage of Initiative 655, which prohibits bear baiting and hound hunting of bears, cougars, and bobcats, is that the cougar population has proliferated – in ways that threaten humans, livestock, and the local ecosystem (in the absence of hound hunting, female cougars tend to be killed disproportionately, so the male population, which is very territorial, has spread out as dominant older male cats live longer).
Whether one views their perspective as fair or not, N.E. Washington citizens feel they are suffering due to the zeal of Western Washington animal rights activists. They note that there are no safe limits for cougars in, for example, Puget Sound urban areas like Seattle. They feel that the safety of their children is less important to state government than the safety of children residing in Puget Sound urban areas. And, in an already economically-distressed area, there is no compensation for livestock losses due to cougar depredation.
Indeed, Ferry County is so economically-distressed, with its major employer, a timber mill, recently closing, that the county has reduced services to four days a week and faces the possibility of bankruptcy. We visited the only remaining major employer, a gold mining operation outside Republic. There we toured a gold processing plant that extracts gold from mined rock. This process has not been without controversy, as gold extraction involves the use of cyanide (in fact, I stood on a metal catwalk over an open bubbling vat of liquid that contained cyanide). Adverse impacts, however, have been controlled to the satisfaction of the Department of Natural Resources, and mine reclamation, after a mine has been exhausted, is a good deal more sophisticated today than the old approach of simply leaving a blasted-looking area un-reclaimed.
The trip was quite informative, and an example of the kind of thing we need to do more often to create understanding between different regions in our diverse state. The paradox with Ferry County is that people there speak sincerely of a desire to be left alone by government. Indeed, a review of their county commission’s minutes showed the commission praising a legislator’s “‘less-is-more’ belief when it comes to government.” And yet people in Ferry County need the state’s economic development assistance. They need Medicaid monies, and school monies, disproportionately generated in Western Washington. Given the small N.E. Washington population, where there was new asphalt along the highway that I traveled on, a truth-in-advertising campaign might have Department of Transportation signs stating, “A donor county’s nickel at work.”
In other words, in addition to requiring greater sensitivity from Western Washington legislators as to what policies are truly necessary in their area (i.e., less government), N.E. Washington citizens also need more government. I do not begrudge these realities. Again, we are one Washington, and N.E. Washington is a very special part of our state. Reconciling the needs of citizens there from government with the rugged individualism that is a trademark of the area is just another test that makes being in the Legislature meaningful.
New Statutory Committee Assignment
House Speaker Frank Chopp has appointed me to the 13-member Developmental Disabilities Residential Services Advisory Council created by Section 129(2) of Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6090 (the state budget).
The Council is tasked with studying residential services for persons with developmental disabilities. The study shall identify a preferred system of services and a plan to implement the system within four years. Recommendations shall be provided on the services that best address client needs in different regions of the state and on the preferred system by January 1, 2006. The study is borne out of the politically-sensitive issue of whether state facilities for the developmentally disabled, like Fircrest in Shoreline, should be downsized or even closed.
This assignment will be a learning experience for me, as my professional work experience has predominantly centered upon geriatric long-term care, and not long-term care for the developmentally disabled. As the uncle of two 3-year-old boys with developmental disabilities, I am firmly committed to the proposition that a just society should do all that it can to serve the needs of, and enable, this population.
This is the third statutory committee assignment I have in addition to my three legislative committee assignments. My other two statutory committee assignments are the Statute Law Committee and The Caring for Washington Individuals with Autism Task Force.
Interim Activities: How I am Spending my "Summer Vacation"
We were fortunate the 2005 session did not exceed its scheduled 105 days. However, the session’s last day does not bring a conclusion to legislative work. I have been interested to find out – from the inside – just how much activity occurs outside of the legislative session. Let me give you a snapshot:
In the past month, in addition to constituent meetings and activities that occur each week, I attended a June 14 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, which I serve as vice chair, regarding enhancing penalties for driving under the influence. Later that same week I went on a two-day tour of rural Washington for site inspections of activities under the jurisdiction of the House Natural Resources, Ecology & Parks Committee. We inspected a gold extraction operation on the Naches River, a quarry in Selah, fish bypass efforts for the Bonneville Dam, and Beacon Rock State Park along Highway 14.
On June 27 Representative Sam Hunt and I accompanied House Speaker Frank Chopp on a tour of the Weyerhaeuser box plant on Union Mills Road. While the plant is located just outside of our 22nd Legislative District, it provides family-wage jobs to many constituents. It makes boxes for a large number of businesses, including a fairly well-known one called Starbucks. The plant is also doing a commendable job with respect to environmental impact and workplace safety.
Statute Law Committee appointment
Speaker Chopp appointed me, as one of just two Democratic attorneys serving in the 98-member House of Representatives, to the Statute Law Committee, and on June 29 I attended my first committee meeting.
The 11-member Statute Law Committee was reconstituted through passage this past session of Substitute House Bill 1847, which amends laws dating to 1951 and gives the Legislature firm oversight of the Code Reviser’s Office. That office’s staff of attorneys is principally tasked with bill-drafting services, and then codifying the laws that result from the passage of bills. This is essential work, and very technical.
At our June 29 meeting, Code Reviser Dennis Cooper announced he will be permanently retiring, after serving 27 years as the code reviser, so we will be tasked with hiring his replacement.
Autism Task Force appointment
I have also been appointed by Speaker Chopp to The Caring for Washington Individuals with Autism Task Force – a statutory assignment created by Senate Bill 5311’s passage into law during the 2005 legislative session.
The 14-member task force consists of four legislators, as well as 10 members appointed by Governor Christine Gregoire. The task force is tasked with studying, and making recommendations to the Legislature regarding, the growing incidence of autism and ways to improve the delivery and coordination of autism services in the state. It is required to complete its review and submit its recommendations to Gov. Gregoire, and appropriate legislative policy and fiscal committees, by December 2006.
I am the uncle of 3-year-old fraternal twin boys with disabilities. One of my nephews has been conclusively diagnosed with autism. My nephew's autism will be a lifelong learning experience for me. We need to uncover the causes of the growing epidemic of autism diagnoses. Although there is no cure for autism, state government can also certainly help facilitate the early diagnosis and intervention that helps therapies better succeed. Although it is easy to be cynical sometimes about the productivity of governmental studies and workgroups (indeed, simply the word “study” makes me shudder a bit), my expectation is that this particular task force can make a real difference.
Many other projects will fill my time prior to the January start of the 2006 legislative session. Because it is only scheduled to be a 60-day session, it is especially important to lay the groundwork now for any policy successes one might expect to achieve. I also come into my legislative office each week (the flow of paperwork continues unabated), and am available for constituent meetings or phone calls.
Please do not hesitate to stay in touch. I hope your own summer is going well, and brings with it opportunity for relaxation and family time.
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Judges Deserve Respect
Because Republicans handpicked a Republican county for their court challenge of the governor’s race, one might suppose they would graciously accept their defeat. Instead, embracing an unfortunate Republican trend, Republicans took intemperate parting shots at the judiciary – which concerns me greatly as both House Judiciary Committee vice chair and a former Washington Supreme Court judicial law clerk.
Dino Rossi won Chelan County with 63.5% of the vote. His case there was spearheaded by another failed Republican gubernatorial candidate, attorney Dale Foreman. Foreman opened trial with wild accusations that ballot boxes were stuffed with votes for Christine Gregoire and Rossi votes were removed.
Far from confirming such charges, the court actually increased Gregoire’s victory margin by subtracting four felon votes from Rossi’s vote total. It turned out Republicans were right – felons had made a difference! Indeed, the judge noted that were it acceptable to simply predict how felons voted, as Republicans argued, Rossi would lose even more votes.
In declining to appeal the Chelan County decision, Rossi claimed the Washington Supreme Court’s “political makeup” made it “almost impossible” for him to prevail. Republican Chair Chris Vance supported that assessment, and disparaged his handpicked trial court’s verdict as “ridiculous.”
Impugning courts, as opposed to acknowledging a case’s weakness, slights Washington’s excellent, non-partisan judicial system. Moreover, Rossi’s conspiracy theory is easily belied by objective facts.
For example, the majority of Washington Supreme Court justices have enjoyed campaign endorsements from key Republican leaders. And in two earlier governor’s race proceedings, the court evenly handed Republicans and Democrats a victory apiece.
Rossi’s demagoguery was reminiscent of recent statements by two prominent fellow Republicans, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom Delay, thrice-sanctioned for ethics violations and embroiled in new scandals, and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
After federal courts blocked Republicans’ extraordinary efforts to restore nutrition to the tragically brain-dead Terry Schiavo, Delay, President Bush’s close Texas friend, stated ominously, “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.” Delay was the star speaker for an April rally entitled, “Confronting the Judicial War on Faith.” Among other statements, Delay referred to the right to privacy as “invented out of whole cloth” by “unaccountable courts.”
Frist also spoke at an April religious rally, “Justice Sunday – Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith,” rife with attacks on the judiciary. In that same telecast, Republican evangelist James Dobson, with an approving Frist nodding, referred to the U.S. Supreme Court as unaccountable, out-of-control and “the despotism of an oligarchy.” Yet seven of nine justices on our nation’s high court are Republican appointees, as are most federal judges.
In May Republican evangelist Pat Robertson warned that federal judges pose a greater threat to our nation than “a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings.” They are, he stated, “destroying the fabric that holds our nation together.” Yet an attorney working for Robertson is one of three strategists entrusted with the job of shepherding President Bush's court nominees through the U.S. Senate. Does this comfort anyone?
Words have consequences. In March, a disgruntled plaintiff murdered the husband and mother of U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lefkow in her Chicago home. She has called upon Republicans to temper attacks upon our justice system. “In the age of mass communication, harsh rhetoric is truly dangerous,” Lefkow notes. “Fostering disrespect for judges can only encourage those that are on the edge, or the fringe, to exact revenge on a judge who ruled against them.”
This week Perry Manley, a Seattle man who accused U.S. District Court Judge Tom Zilly of treason (a crime Manley stated was punishable by death), was killed outside Seattle’s U.S. Courthouse after gesturing at police with an inert grenade.
We now need look no further than Seattle to find the lesson in Judge Lefkow’s caution.
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