The team at Shift thought we had seen Governor Jay Inslee go as low as he could over his three decades on the public payroll. But the Washington Policy Center found a new depth for our green governor, highlighting that “(A)fter claiming that his climate tax wouldn’t increase gas prices, Governor Inslee now says he was misled by Ecology staff who ‘did the best jobs they could,’ but missed the mark badly.” This false claim came at a clumsy media event where he demanded the state waste another billion in taxes on his green dreams.

You have to view the governor’s shameful performance at the press conference itself, captured by Brandi Kruse from TVW’s coverage of the state-sponsored carbon tax pep rally, to see if you’re convinced that higher gas prices can never be blamed on Jay Inslee and his fellow Democrats. And you can read on to learn it doesn’t really matter “(W)hether the governor and Ecology staff were dishonest or just incompetent, Washingtonians should have learned they can’t trust what they are being told about the state’s climate policy” here… Washington Policy Center, Brandi Kruse X/TVW.

Shift has been keeping readers up-to-speed on the slow-moving train wreck that is the ongoing negotiation between Washington state, the federal government and a variety of extreme environmental groups over ripping out the four Lower Snake River dams. Now a more local voice, the head of the state’s largest nonprofit electric cooperative, paints in the Spokesman-Review an even more vivid picture that the “lack of transparency and back-room deals conducted by the White House is likely to lead to leaner bank accounts and dark homes for the American public – especially in the Pacific Northwest.”

This dark prediction is made in part because “(P)ublic power organizations and advocates repeatedly requested to be involved in these discussions only to be ghosted and ignored.” Read on to see why the region should “not stand for paying more for power that isn’t guaranteed to be there when we need it” here… Shift, Spokesman-Review.

More will be learned in the coming days, but late-breaking news that “Sound Transit CEO Julie Timm, who replaced former agency director Peter Rogoff in September 2022, announced her resignation Tuesday afternoon” is too important to ignore. We assume that PubliCola will dig deeper than most publications into the coincidence that “two days before the Sound Transit board was scheduled to discuss her performance evaluation” that Ms. Timm decided to leave.

You can read on to see how “(F)inding a permanent CEO for the agency could be an arduous process” due to the extreme level of hiring incompetence here… PubliCola.

Washington taxpayers have watched the state budget more than double – to over $60 billion every two years – under Gov. Inslee mismanagement, yet the demands for more tax dollars never cease. And KIRO’s Chris Sullivan highlights yet another way liberals are reaching into the wallets of drivers on I-405 and Highway 167, as the “Washington State Transportation Commission is expected to vote tomorrow to raise the rates to meet the current demand. The toll rates just aren’t high enough.”

Of course, some might think the tolls are plenty high, but not when you “remember that the tolls here are designed to price people out of the (toll) lanes.” Read on to understand why the commission will decide whether doubling the minimum toll most drivers pay and jacking up the maximum rate on both freeways to “either $12 or $15” will please the transit gods enough here… KIRO FM.

It is worth remembering that there are many victims of the far-Left overreach which left our state’s public schools closed for longer than anywhere else during the COVID pandemic, with the students who persevered through those mistake-filled years the most worse off. However, even more victims are on the way according to this Crosscut coverage, with some of the same bad decision-makers now planning “school closures and consolidations within the next few years.”

The unfortunate reality is that “enrollment numbers remain about 4% below those of the 2019-2020 school year” even as school spending has soared above pre-pandemic levels. You can read on to see a large part of the mess is due to a failure to understand basic economics, and the use of “one-time COVID-19 relief funding” to fund higher salaries here… Crosscut.

The race to replace retiring Congressman Derek Kilmer has yet to generate much interest, but it has produced several laughs so far. The latest funny was candidate Hilary Franz telling MyNorthwest that “she decided to run for Congress after speaking with voters across Washington and learning of their concerns,” when a quick look at her calendar would show she has spent most of the last four years running for governor, not Congress.

It’s strange that Franz, the state’s current Public Lands Commissioner, thinks so little of voters that they would not know she is only running for Congress because she was run out of the governor’s race. You can read on to see how it’s also funny to hear Commissioner Franz say “I’ve worked in almost every acre of this district” as her way of covering up the fact that the Seattle homeowner doesn’t actually live in the largely rural district where she is seeking her next public job here… MyNorthwest.

Former U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, currently running for Washington State Commissioner of  Public Lands, discussed her candidacy in last week’s Newsmaker Interview. Having served 12 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, Herrera Beutler aims to enhance the management of public lands to mitigate wildfires, emphasizing the need for proactive measures like clearing brush and removing downed trees. In her interview, Herrera Beutler criticized Democrat leadership for increasing the damage of the state’s recent devastating wildfires and suggested a more science-based approach to resource management. In addition to her political insights, she shared her favorite book—a classic biography of one of the nation’s founding fathers. Read more.

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