Letter to the editor for April. 5

Congress has a do-nothing attitude

Americans in this country should be angry at the number of lost manufacturing jobs that resulted from NAFTA. The Air Force's recent $35 billion contract awarding to Airbus for 179 refueling tankers finally woke up many sleeping Americans.

Where was the uproar from Americans on Jan. 28, 2005, when the Navy awarded a $6.1 billion contract to Agusta Westland of the United Kingdom for 23 helicopters for the presidential fleet? Not a peep was heard from Congress.

Congress only shows up when Americans are angry. Congress was too busy doing nothing on immigration reform, discussing flag burning, holding hearings on steroids in baseball, creating earmarks, shaking down lobbyists for campaign donations, providing pay raises for themselves, doing nothing on health care, doing nothing to rebuild New Orleans, spending billions on Iraq (a war they voted for), and doing nothing to investigate the 13 percent reduction in refining capacity of oil companies to maintain high gasoline prices at the pump.

Maybe the people should investigate Congress for its do-nothing attitude. Americans are scared of losing more manufacturing jobs that pay good wages and have had enough.

Over the years, Boeing has enjoyed numerous tax breaks and outsourced manufacturing jobs of many Americans during that time. Boeing now experiences firsthand how U.S. workers feel as their jobs are outsourced. It doesn't feel very good. Congress should provide no money for this tanker contract. How can this contract be good for America when comparing the value of the Euro to the U.S. dollar?

Gary Snell, Olympia

Prosecutors should follow Dan Satterberg's lead

The Pew Charitable Trusts report released recently revealed that one in every 100 people in this country is incarcerated. Would you think we're a little overboard on our handling of corrections? We cannot be the worst country in the world yet we incarcerate more people than any other country.

Dan Satterberg, King County prosecuting attorney, has taken a small step toward fixing some of the blatant injustices in our system. He is digging into his old files to find possible injustices because of the three-strikes law. In view of the overcrowded prisons and the huge expense and the harshness of the law, and yes, the distinct possibility of injustice, I think that other county prosecutors should follow Dan Satterberg's example.

Andrea Robbins, Olympia

County at pivotal point on Rocky Prairie

Thurston County has a choice to make: Protect the rural character of our county or industrialize Rocky Prairie.

Rocky Prairie, near Maytown, falls within the sensitive Black River Watershed and protects the headwaters for two salmon-bearing streams.

This prairie connects crucial natural areas including Millersylvania State Park to form one of the largest remaining wildlife corridors in Thurston County. In 2006, the Port of Tacoma purchased 745 acres of Rocky Prairie to develop the South Sound Logistics Center, or SSLC, an expansive industrial park that will encroach onto these natural areas, home to threatened habitats and species.

According to the port and its partner port in Olympia, the SSLC could include a chemical manufacturing plant, a solid waste transfer facility, and several million square feet of high-cube warehousing — all of which will spill over onto neighboring property and may require community dislocation.

The ports admits that at least 2,000 trucks a day will travel the 2.5 miles of road running from Interstate 5 to the Maytown site. There has not been a comprehensive environmental impact study completed on the proposal; nor has impact to our existing communities and traffic patterns been defined.

The ports are considering three other sites besides Maytown, one of which is actively seeking development.

Grace Diehl, Olympia

Oil company profits are obscene

It is 168.81 miles to my parents' house in Sheridan, Ore., from my apartment in the college town of Lacey. That's about three-quarters of a tank of gasoline for my little Ford Focus, or $35.

Granted, I'll have to fill up to return to Washington, so let's say that's about $70 total. To put this into perspective, that's approximately one-third of my usable income for the entire month.

In contrast, Exxon made more than $40 billion in profit for the year, as it increased the cost of living for everyone in America by raising fuel prices higher and higher. My dad, a diesel mechanic at Yellow Freight, has a theory on why gasoline prices are spiking. He tells me, "The fuel prices are artificially high because of speculation in the commodities market. There is no supply problem. Surplus oil storage is higher than it's been in months."

If there isn't a supply problem, and Exxon is making $40 billion in profit alone off of the deal, wouldn't that make the whole situation a daylight extortion arrangement? The gasoline companies laugh as they bully us to give up our lunch money, our date money and our vacation money. The government allowed all of these oil company mergers, in spite of the antitrust laws. Now those mergers are holding a death warrant on our economy, and no one seems to notice the correlations.

Isn't it time that we stood up against the oil monopoly?

Alicia Kuhre, Lacey

It's business as usual for Port of Olympia

Add the Port of Olympia to the growing list of war profiteers.

With recent revelations that the Port of Olympia netted more than $400,000 in military contracts last year, it joins a long and undistinguished list of companies profiting off of the illegal occupation and ongoing human tragedy in Iraq. I'm sure port leaders are delighted with themselves now that they have joined the ranks of such notable other war profiteers as Bechtel, Halliburton, General Dynamics and Exxon Mobil.

In justifying turning a profit on the largest foreign policy mistake in the history of this country, Port Commissioner Bill McGregor offers innocently that the job of the port is simply to move cargo. Apparently the content of the cargo is irrelevant to the commissioner; it's all about the money.

In McGregor's view, toxic waste being sent for disposal in developing countries is as clean as wind turbines. Weapons sent to bolster the power of U.S.-friendly regimes who repress their citizens are as sweet as Washington apples.

McGregor's response and failure to consider the human and moral consequences of port activities is troubling, and calls into question his and other port leaders' fitness for public office.

Five years into the occupation of Iraq, it's business as usual at the Port of Olympia.

I guess that's why the next time they attempt to move military cargo through the port in support of an illegal occupation, citizens will again take to the street to try to stop them.

TJ Johnson, Olympia