The more we learn about Jay Inslee’s extreme environmental agenda, the more we see that our green, green governor appears to be waging war on the pocketbooks of Washington State’s working families. Inslee’s latest battle in his “green war” is his proposal for a dramatic boost in the state’s fish consumption rate to unrealistically increase water quality standards.
State Senator John Braun wants people to know more about Inslee’s unprecedented new rules, which (if actually adopted) would significantly boost city water treatment bills. In fact, the City of Bellingham predicts that families can expect an increase from $35 up to $200 per month in their sewage bills.
If you thought Inslee’s latest offensive move against Washington’s taxpayers stopped with his new rules on water quality standards, you were wrong. In addition to his unrealistic (and unscientific) new standards, Inslee announced that he would begin to “take a broader approach to areas that are not currently regulated” — areas which he “defined as ‘up stream at the source,’ and that ‘the majority of toxins come from what we build.’”
Braun writes in The Daily News,
“What we build in Washington happens through big and small manufacturing companies that employ more than 300,000 people and contribute more than $26 billion a year to the state’s economy. Many of these companies, such as Simpson Timber and PDM Steel in Cowlitz County, are the economic foundation and lifeblood for hundreds of communities throughout the state.”
How does Inslee plan on applying his “broader” regulatory approach to big and small manufacturing companies? By making Washington State’s big government even bigger, of course. Again, Senator Braun:
“The governor’s proposal, called the Toxin Reduction package, includes giving the Department of Ecology expanded authority to ban certain chemicals and require companies to use new “green chemicals.” The proposal also expands DOE’s reach into local governments to force change through the permitting process and into areas not currently covered by permitting. The most serious consequence of the changes is that the science and technology don’t even exist to comply with some of the new regulations, and the alternatives are too costly for many businesses to bear.”
In other words, in one sweeping move, Inslee wants to expand his war on Washington’s working families to include a war on jobseverywhere … all for the sake of his extreme green agenda. At the expense of taxpayers, Inslee wants to increase the control of his army of unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Ecology, giving them “more power and authority over how we build things in Washington.”
Braun writes that “banning certain chemicals or demanding that companies remove components when no alternatives exist”— which is sure to happen once Ecology’s bureaucrats have the power — “makes the governor’s retaliatory approach unworkable and harmful to our economic health.”
That’s harmful to Washington’s economy, and taxpayers.
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