EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been corrected to accurately reflect Rep. Kevin Van De Wege’s position within the state House of Representatives Democratic Caucus.
OLYMPIA — Cut more trees, plant even more, create more jobs, and absorb more carbon.
The state Department of Natural Resources’ harvesting of trees is a top priority for state Sen. Jim Hargrove, a Democrat from Hoquiam, as he heads into his 31st season in the state capital.
His hope is echoed by 24th District state Reps. Kevin Van De Wege and Steve Tharinger, both Sequim Democrats. The 24th District encompasses the North Olympic Peninsula as well as a portion of Grays Harbor County.
The three legislators spoke by phone with Peninsula Daily News late last week from Olympia, where they’ll launch the 2015 session Monday.
While they probably won’t introduce a bill to this effect, the district’s three Democrats want to hold the state Department of Natural Resources’ feet to the fire for calculating timber yields from state forests and meeting those calculations with increased harvests.
“Forestry can be key to managing carbon if aggressively managed,” Hargrove said.
“Those fast-growing [newly planted] trees take up a whole lot more carbon than old-growth forests,” he said.
It also would boost employment in the timber industry and on the Olympic Peninsula, Hargrove said.
Tharinger and Van De Wege, the majority whip of the state House of Representatives Democratic Caucus, said they hoped to meet with DNR officials now, in the first year of a 10-year sustainable harvest plan.
“They have not kept up with the harvesting of their own plan,” Van De Wege said.
He said that DNR has not cut as much as it could.
Hargrove also would support legislation encouraging contractors who do business with the state to use lumber instead of other materials.
“It’s way better than steel or aluminum or concrete,” the senator said, because wood uses less energy to produce while it reduces atmospheric carbon due to forest replanting.
“I’ll be putting my spin on that idea as it comes forward,” he said. “I’ve got the governor’s ear on this.”
Carbon reduction, he noted, is a priority of Gov. Jay Inslee.
Meanwhile, overshadowing all Washington legislators’ ambitions is how they’ll lift the state Supreme Court’s ruling that they are in contempt of its 2012 order to fully fund and to update public education in what’s known as the McCleary decision.
That means they not only must find more funds for schools, they also must make schools function better.
Whether they’ll cut spending or raise revenues will frame the partisan battle that likely will run into the spring.
“I think we’ll have another nasty session in store for us this year,” Van De Wege said.
Republicans control the state Senate while Democrats hold the House majority.
Hargrove is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
“That’s going to take the vast majority of my time, making the budget work in the face of the McCleary investment,” he said.
He doesn’t want to “decimate the rest of the functions of the state.”
Tharinger called 2015 “a watershed session” because “revenues are better, and yet we have huge obligations in education, mental health and transportation.”
“I think it’s time to step up and deal with these issues,” he added.
Tharinger, vice chairman of the House Finance Committee, also serves on the House Appropriations Committee.
He said he’d sought financial responsibilities “so I could be part of that discussion.”
One solution he’d support would be a capital gains tax, which Tharinger said could be adjusted “so that it targets folks that right now are not paying their fair share.”
Inslee has proposed a capital gains tax.
However, Tharinger would reform the Business and Occupation tax, which he called “a very onerous tax, especially to startup businesses.”
The B&O tax is a gross receipts tax, measured from the beginning of a business on the value of its products, gross proceeds of sale, or gross income of the business.
Tharinger would broaden the B&O base but limit it to established businesses that gross more than $250,000 a year, which he said would exempt 70 percent of enterprises, including those that now must pay the tax off the top while still struggling to establish themselves.
Other priorities as the 24th District delegation heads into the session:
Hargrove:
■ Changing criminal sentencing guidelines to provide non-incarceration supervision for offenders who receive substance abuse treatment.
■ Reducing case loads for Child Protective Service investigators.
■ Helping the City of Port Angeles stabilize its landfill. “I’m certainly hoping to get significant resources to help with the cleanup.”
■ Easing regulations on small cartage companies so they can compete with major moving firms.
Tharinger:
■ Providing mental health treatment capacity for patients who sometimes are “warehoused” in hospital emergency rooms that have no psychiatric facilities.
■ Raising fuel tax revenues to fund transportation improvements in the Interstate 5 corridor, which he called “the economic engine of the state. Our economic activity is being impacted by not having a 21st century transportation system.”
Van De Wege:
■ Introducing a maritime heritage bill that would include a marine tour of the Olympic Peninsula.
■ Banning what he calls “legacy chemicals” — primarily flame retardants — that enter the food chain through water runoff, then spread to animals and finally to humans.
The Sequim representative said the chemicals do little to retard fires but create toxic fumes that imperil firefighters.
Van De Wege serves as a firefighter/paramedic for Clallam County Fire District 3.
“I seem to have toxics legislation every year,” he said, adding that he expects opposition from companies that manufacture flame retardants.
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
