Editorial: Lawmakers must keep at transportation's grand deal
By The Herald Editorial Board
If you’ve been keeping up with reporting from Jerry Cornfield, The Daily Herald’s legislative correspondent, you will have noticed the complexity of the moving — and possibly interchangeable — parts included in a grand bargain for the state’s transportation budget, including approval of a $17.8 billion transportation spending plan, the taxes and fees to pay for it and legislation to address carbon emissions for which the state’s modes of transportation are most responsible.
With eight days remaining before the April 26 conclusion of the regular session, lawmakers continue to spar over proposals, counter-proposals, conditions, amendments, objections, consequences and benefits.
That last one — benefits — is no small thing and goes beyond the transportation projects proposed; it also includes proposals that would represent significant steps toward beginning to limit the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change — in particular carbon dioxide — 44 percent of which are the products of the state’s transportation sector.
The nearly $18 billion in the main transportation spending package would fund projects and programs throughout the state, including a long-sought shared project with Oregon to replace I-5’s Columbia River crossing into Portland; a second replacement bridge over the Columbia at Hood River, Ore.; the construction of four new ferries; resumption of prior highway and other projects delayed by covid’s economic drag; replacement of salmon-blocking culverts mandated by a U.S. Supreme Court decision; and typical expenditures for support of the State Patrol, public transit and other programs.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-lawmakers-must-keep-at-transportations-grand-deal/
