While the process might seem to be interminable, Washington’s method for considering large energy facilities strikes a proper balance between economic and environmental concerns.
Since Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. reached an agreement in 2013 with the Port of Vancouver to build and operate what would be the nation’s largest rail-to-marine oil terminal at the port, the proposal has been inching along through a laborious permitting and approval process. The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council has been examining the proposal, considering public comment, evaluating input from various stakeholders and preparing to make a recommendation to the governor — who will have the final say.
In an era when economic concerns are often reduced in the political arena to assertions that the regulatory climate is burdensome, the debate over the proposed terminal would appear to be rife for such accusations. Proponents of the terminal, after all, can claim that a three-year process is damaging to the economy when the facility could have been providing jobs and paying taxes by this point. But those proponents would be inaccurate in their assessment; large energy facilities can be transformative to a community and deserve the utmost deliberation.
“By going this far, the state has supported procedures that are essential to the wise use of our dwindling resources and the responsible stewardship of an expanding economy,” wrote University of Washington law professor William Rodgers in 1971 as he critiqued the creation of the site evaluation council.