A few months ago, President Barack Obama spoke to a room full of world leaders and tried to convey the importance of acting on climate change.
“We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do anything about it,” Obama said at the United Nations Climate Summit in September.
Obama attributed the quote to an American governor: Washington’s Jay Inslee.
The first-term Democratic governor has carved out a reputation as a green-energy pioneer and the nation’s greenest governor.
Inslee recently unveiled an ambitious climate-related package that calls for taxing the state’s biggest polluters. It will face fierce opposition in the state Legislature.
But there is one decision facing the governor that is his alone to make, and some have likened it to the choice now facing Obama on the Keystone XL pipeline; Inslee will decide whether to approve the nation’s largest oil-by-rail terminal at the Port of Vancouver.
Dan Riley, the public face for the West Coast’s biggest refinery, Tesoro Corp., which is behind the proposed Vancouver project, said despite the governor’s climate-friendly reputation, Inslee has “every reason to say yes” to the terminal.
One former key player in the regulatory process, Vancouver lawyer Jim Luce, disagreed.
“I think if you’re Tesoro, you’re most worried about the governor,” Luce said.
Inslee is constrained by law and can’t say a word about the terminal until a recommendation from the environmental siting council lands on his desk.
State Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, on Friday announced a set of bills designed to prevent future bistate transportation projects from meeting the same fate as the failed Columbia River Crossing.
Cleveland unveiled three proposals she described as “safeguards” that would improve collaboration between two states and make it more difficult for leaders to pull the plug on a major project late in the game. In 2013, after almost a decade of planning, the Washington Legislature walked away from the CRC without approving funding for it — a move that ultimately led to the project’s demise the following year.
“I believe that we needed greater skin in the game,” Cleveland said.
One of Cleveland’s bills would establish a “bistate megaproject work group” to facilitate communication between the two states. Another would require state money to be taken from other transportation projects and given to a megaproject if it’s received a federal Record of Decision but no financing plan by the next regular legislative session. The third proposal would put the state on the hook for reimbursing funds spent on a megaproject if it fails to materialize.
As proposed, the bills would have largely penalized Washington for the outcome of the CRC.
The CRC spent $200 million and had some crucial permits in place before it folded in May 2014. The proposed Interstate 5 Bridge replacement would have cost more than $3 billion to build, but never made it to construction.
Cleveland’s proposals would apply to bistate transportation projects valued at $500 million or more. She said she plans to formally introduce the bills next week, when the 2015 legislative session starts in Olympia.
The proposals don’t specifically address the CRC. Cleveland said she’s not interested in rehashing that fight, though she stressed that the I-5 corridor — and the bridge — remain a priority for improvement.
“It’s tough to know where to begin again,” Cleveland said. “But I think we can all agree that doing nothing is not an alternative.”
The CrossFit fanatics have heard it before: Is this some kind of cult?
Nancy Harvey, who is on the CrossFit Fort Vancouver Invitational Committee, said she was hesitant before joining CrossFit. But after “going nowhere fast on a treadmill,” she decided to give it a shot.
It wasn’t long before someone was saying, “Oh yeah, she drank the Kool-Aid” about her.
Now, the 49-year-old former competitive swimmer is in the best shape of her life save for freshman year of college.
On Saturday, Harvey helped co-direct the second annual CrossFit Fort Vancouver Invitational at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.
Hundreds of spectators watched the elite CrossFit athletes participate in the invitational, which continues Sunday. As Harvey explained, timed exercises included burpees, back squats and chest-to-bar pull-ups.
Adam Neiffer, owner of CrossFit Fort Vancouver, which hosts the invitational, took a moment’s break from warming up for his competition on Saturday.
Neiffer had been a wildland firefighter for several years before he opened the CrossFit Fort Vancouver gym.
The reason the workout has become so popular, he said, “is because it’s life changing. People see uncommon results.”
“They get this renewed sense of movement that they had as kids, and they get it back,” Neiffer said.
Not to mention, Harvey and Neiffer added, it’s simply fun.
Gasoline prices dipped below the $2 a gallon barrier this weekend in Clark County as the ripple effects from a global collapse in oil prices wash up in consumers’ wallets.
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The price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $1.999 on Saturday at two Costco locations in Vancouver and at Hockinson Market in Brush Prairie, according to reports from readers and the price-tracking website washingtongasprices.com.
“There’s definitely a lot of people getting cash back from their fill-ups,” said Kelby Hubbard, an employee at the market. He said he’d seen quite a few customers taking advantage of the lower price Saturday.
Prices for regular at supermarket chains and other retailers that tend to sell at discounted prices are at $2.05 a gallon, while prices at major brands are trending between $2.25 and 2.59, according to the website.
Gasoline prices have been falling steadily in Washington since peaking last summer. The website shows prices have fallen from about $4 a gallon in early July to $2.385 a gallon Saturday afternoon.
Nationally, prices have fallen from a peak of nearly $3.70 in April to $2.145 Saturday, the site said.
Oil prices have plummeted by more than half since June as traders anticipate a glut of supply caused by increased production. U.S. crude fell 43 cents, or 0.9 percent, to close Friday at $48.36 a barrel in New York.
Fears about significantly cheaper oil have spooked some investors worried about global economic growth, but most economists remain optimistic that lower energy prices will benefit U.S. consumers and many businesses.
When people in Clark County wanted to show their appreciation for local law enforcement, they showed it with sweet treats.
The Washougal Police Department was gifted with cookies, Vancouver police got a pie, a family dropped off doughnuts at the Battle Ground police station, and when Camas police got to work, they found a table full of cookies and doughnuts. The Ridgefield Police Department got a healthy bag of oranges.
Friday, the first National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, wasn’t about feeding cops but about the message behind the gestures. Agencies got emails and cards thanking the men and women whose job is to project and serve.
“In today’s climate, I think anything that can strengthen the relationship between law enforcement and the community is good,” said Camas police Sgt. Scot Boyles.
The event, organized by the Camden, Mo.-based Concerns of Police Survivors, or COPS, was organized in response to the recent national news that has led to animosity toward police.
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“Even with recent events, the vast majority of the citizens — at least those I come in contact with — still appreciate what we do, regardless of a holiday or not,” Boyles said.
Following the controversy surrounding the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York City, Boyles said people have made a point to stop and voice their ongoing support.
“I’ve had people just come out of the woodwork since then,” Boyles said. “I think that the general public is fed up with a lot of the negative media coverage. … People who have that thankful spirit, show it.”
Standing in the entryway of a bustling restaurant, Sara Redlich clutched a bouquet of flowers and a box covered in Christmas wrapping paper.
She waited anxiously for a woman she’d never met to give her back what was inside: love letters that dated back more than 40 years.
“I get to give her her memories back,” she said. She said she’d wrapped the letters up to make it more fun to give them to the woman to whom they were addressed: Rose Hill.
Redlich, 27, found the letters about six years ago during a trip to a Goodwill store in Hillsboro, Ore. At the time, she lived in Aloha, Ore., and found the old, tattered letters and other vintage looking papers strewn among the other items sold at the second-hand store.
One of the papers, a military discharge paper, had a man’s Social Security number on it. She gathered them up and approached an employee. Redlich said she didn’t seem interested.
“So I grabbed them all … I thought, ‘I need to find the rightful owner,’ ” she said. “‘If nobody else is going to do anything about it, I am.'”
But soon after, Redlich put them in a box and forgot about them. She moved to California and then to Salmon Creek, where she’s lived for the past three years.
This past week, as she was preparing to move across town, Redlich came across the box.
