Surrounded by walls covered with political signs, a man who has produced more than a few of his own visited Vancouver on Wednesday to say he’s lived up to his bumper-sticker claims of job creation.
“This is the first time in 18 years we’ve had a live governor attend a meeting (here),” said Ed Barnes, president of the Labor Round Table.
Gov. Jay Inslee got a warm welcome Wednesday afternoon at the union hall on Andresen Road as a few dozen regional labor leaders gathered for a quick roundtable.
Inslee jumped around in the hourlong talk, promoting everything from last year’s transportation package to work on education to an effort to raise the state’s minimum wage through a ballot measure to $13.50 over four years.
“Working people are producing more than ever before,” said Inslee. “They’re not capturing the benefits of that increased productivity.”
The Democrat, running for re-election this fall, received applause for his education efforts and was encouraged to do everything he could to get a new Interstate 5 Bridge built between Washington and Oregon.
“Local legislators from this county killed the I-5 bridge,” Inslee stressed several times. “Nobody has worked harder on this than me. … This is important for the whole state — Everett depends on that bridge not going down.”
Shannon Walker, head of the Southwest Washington Central Labor Council, also asked for Inslee’s support in approving the rail-to-marine oil terminal proposed for the Port of Vancouver.
The governor has final say over whether the 360,000-barrel-per-day terminal gets built following the ongoing environmental review process. During the process, however, he can’t let his opinions be known.
“I literally can’t say anything about it,” Inslee said of the Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. project. But, he added, “I do not have any predetermined mindset on it.”
On proposed carbon taxes or caps that would affect a few large Clark County businesses, local high-tech industry representative Bob Schaefer told Inslee to consider the 5,000 jobs affected and the importance of low power costs to industries.
“Rates start going up and we won’t see growth,” Schaefer said.
Clark Public Utilities gets about 40 percent of its power from the natural gas-fired River Road Generating Plant, which would be affected by proposed carbon rules.
In more union-specific issues, Inslee lent his support for the “fair-share fees” currently under review at the U.S. Supreme Court and for apprenticeship programs in the state.
“Apprenticeship programs are under attack by those who think it’s a communist plot,” he said.
