Letters to the editor for April 28

Were we heard?

Representing Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, I was one of dozens of constituents who came to Olympia on April 4 to testify before the Senate Transportation Committee regarding HB 1110 which proposes a lower carbon fuel standard for our state.

The committee was scheduled to convene at 1:30 p.m. It convened at 5:30 p.m. following the full Senate session. Most of us stayed. It is that crucial a bill and issue for our time.

Chair Steve Hobbs opened the meeting, made no apologies for the delay, and then, because of the large number who had signed in to speak and the late hour, limited our comment time to 90 seconds. Later he would shorten that to 60 seconds.

He went on to let us know that two “intriguing” amendments had been added to the bill, at his instigation, that would tax the “bio” portion of bio diesel and would allow industries to pay a $6 per metric ton of CO2 fine in lieu of complying with a lower carbon fuel standard. He asked that our comments be directed primarily to fiscal issues.

None of us had been able to review the amendments for the sake of comment.

Were any of us heard? Pro or con, were any of us truly heard?

Our legislative process allows for public comment. In the instance of this important legislation, the public was short changed.

Taxpayer waste and environmental travesty

I was appalled to discover in the Legislative budget proposal an item to allocate $534,000 to “study” the use of imidacloprid, a toxic chemical denied by the Department of Ecology and not supported in bills 1611 and 5626 (which died).

This is an egregious end-run attempt and waste of taxpayer money to fund the use of a toxic chemical on public waters in Willapa Bay to “control” (kill) native burrowing shrimp that are interfering with the harvesting of non-native oysters. The use of this chemical pollutes our public waters and threatens native marine life and forage fish habitat.

This chemical has already been studied with the conclusion it was not to be used. The label says “ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS: This product is highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates. Do not apply to water, to areas where surface water is present or to intertidal areas below the mean high water mark.”

And the budget item proposes to allocate a half million dollars of taxpayer money for a study with a foregone conclusion? Surely, with all the other pressing, legitimate needs to be considered, this budget item deserves a public outcry as wasteful, irresponsible and illegal -- and needs to be removed!

This story was originally published April 26, 2019 at 2:47 PM.