Gov. Butch Otter on Friday offered begrudging praise for President Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus fund, saying it has helped complete highway projects in Idaho, create jobs and reduce the need for state gas tax hikes, reports AP reporter John Miller. Those comments appeared to put him at odds with Mitt Romney, who has the Idaho governor's backing for president and who says Obama's $814 million stimulus “didn't create private-sector jobs,” Miller reports. The apparent difference is notable because Otter is the Romney's Idaho campaign chairman; he introduced the former Massachusetts governor at Idaho's March 6 “Super Tuesday” caucus, where Romney beat Rick Santorum. Click below for Miller's full report.

Ray LaHood on Obama transportation plan, 9-7-2010

Sen. Patty Murray on Obama transportation plan, 9-7-2010

Sen. Patty Murray speaks at freeway ceremony, 9-7-2010

The following is a corrected version of an earlier post.

Noticeably absent from the ceremony on Tuesday that celebrated the start of construction of a portion of the North Spokane Corridor were any elected Republican officials.

It was Spokane Mayor Mary Verner who served as master of ceremony (though the freeway still hasn’t reached city limits). The speakers besides honored guest U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, included U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and state Sen. Chris Marr — both Democrats facing tough reelection battles.

Besides the speakers, among those who were given gold-colored shovels to “break ground” were state Rep. Timm Ormsby, D-Spokane, and state Rep. John Driscoll, D-Spokane.

Officials said the event was organized by Murray’s office and the federal transportation department. So were Republicans shunned?

Maureen Knightly, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said Republican U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers received an invitation to the event last week.

(An earlier version of this post quoted a Murray spokesman who said McMorris-Rodgers likely wasn’t invited because of her stance against the stimulus bill.)

McMorris-Rodgers was not invited to a ceremony in February where it was announced that the state won the $35 million grant for the project. The freeway lanes are being funded through the controversial $787 billion federal stimulus legislation that McMorris-Rodgers opposed and Murray supported.

Other Republicans who were invited included Spokane County commissioners. Commissioner Todd Mielke confirmed that county leaders were invited but couldn’t attend because of a previously scheduled public hearing. He said commissioners participated in a later meeting at the Spokane International Airport with LaHood and several local and state transportation officials.

LaHood, who arrived in a white Suburban escorted by two Spokane Police cars, spent much of his speech praising Murray for her vote in support of the stimulus bill and for her work to create the competitive grant program using stimulus funds that ultimately funded the southbound lanes.

Idaho will qualify for $51.6 million in aid to its hard-hit public schools under the new federal jobs bill, and Gov. Butch Otter has announced that he’ll apply for the money, a decision welcomed by state schools Supt. Tom Luna. Click below to read Otter’s full news release.

Here’s a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The state Department of Education says Idaho is expected to receive $51 million as part of a $10 billion job saving measure that has passed the U.S. House of Representatives. The legislation is part of a larger, $26 billion jobs bill aimed at helping teachers and other public workers avoid layoffs. The bill now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature. State education officials are still getting details on how the money will be spent or distributed.

Idahoans can still get rebates of up to $300 if they’re replacing an older appliance with a new Energy Star-rated one, according to the Idaho Office of Energy Resources. The Idaho rebate program, which is funded by federal stimulus legislation, has nearly $300,000 still to hand out of its original $1.2 million; so far, more than 3,600 rebates have been awarded in Idaho. “If people have been waiting to buy a new appliance and get a rebate, they should act soon,” said state energy resources chief Paul Kjellander. “We anticipate that funds will be exhausted by the end of August, perhaps earlier.” Click here for more info. Kjellander’s office calculates that people who replace older appliances can save the amount of the rebate or more every year just from their energy savings, because the newer ones are more efficient.

Idaho is saving tens of millions because construction bids on its big federal stimulus-funded highway projects - including the Dover Bridge in North Idaho and the Vista Interchange in Boise - are coming in so far under budget. The result: Instead of just the eight big projects around the state that are planned, Idaho should be able to add to its list, and a North Idaho bottleneck on U.S. Highway 95 could benefit. “They are very competitive bids, extremely competitive,” said Jeff Stratten, spokesman for the Idaho Transportation Department. “Contractors are eager and hungry to go to work, and their bids are reflecting it.” Said ITD board member Jim Coleman, “We’re getting five or six bids in places that we would get one or two before.”

The low bid for the Dover Bridge replacement project alone came in $15.2 million below the original budget estimate. The Vista Interchange on I-84 came in a whopping $21.2 million below the estimate. So far, five of the eight stimulus-funded projects have gone to bid, and the apparent low bids total $40.9 million less than the original estimates; there are still three more projects to go to bid in the next few weeks. Dozens of highway projects around the state could vie for a share of the savings - including the two-mile gap that’s been left unfunded at the south end of the Garwood-to-Sagle freeway project on U.S. Highway 95 in North Idaho. That long-planned four-lane highway will end two miles shy of the existing four-lane highway at Hayden, creating a potential two-lane, two-mile bottleneck.

“Believe me, when somebody finds out we have some money that hasn’t been allocated, there will be projects that people will want,” said Darrell Manning, chairman of the Idaho Transportation Board. “They’re all good projects, they’re all needed projects.” When the board first looked at candidates for stimulus funding, he said, “We had $800 million worth of projects.” After all eight stimulus projects have gone to bid, the ITD staff will develop a recommendation on candidates for the leftover money, and the transportation board will begin discussing which ones to pick as soon as July.

Several factors led to the lower bids, including a drop in prices for commodities like oil, asphalt and steel worldwide since the budget estimates first were developed, and pent-up demand for work among contractors in the region due to the tough economy. For the Dover Bridge replacement, ITD received five bids, all from contractors in the region. The lowest was $21.6 million from Sletten Construction of Great Falls, Mont.; the highest was $23.6 million from another Great Falls firm. All five were far below the $36.8 million budget. For the Vista Interchange, ITD received six bids, with the lowest, $17.8 million, from Central Paving Co. of Boise. The highest was $21.2 million from Idaho Sand and Gravel of Nampa; all six were far below the budget of $39 million. You can read my full story here in today’s Spokesman-Review.

CNN catches Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., in a “misstatement” on the loophole that allowed AIG to give out bonuses, and hammers him.

Legislative Democrats were waiting outside Gov. Butch Otter’s stimulus press conference to give their response. While they gave the governor high marks for deciding to take the stimulus money, and had some praise for the process he followed, they objected to the magnitude of cuts in education he endorsed, while essentially banking millions in stimulus money and state reserve funds to hedge against additional future economic downturns. House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, offered this analogy: “If you have a sick family member and money in the bank, to say, ‘Well, don’t take care of the sick family member, let’s save the money in case they get sicker’ - that just doesn’t make sense to us.”

Gov. Butch Otter said Reps. Moyle and Bedke came over and pitched to him their idea of using $45 million of federal stimulus for corporate tax cuts - all the discretionary money the governor had to divide. “Listen, they’ve got a lot of different ideas over there,” Otter said. “I didn’t see it putting jobs on the street, I didn’t see it putting people to work.” He said he discussed the idea with “the business community” and they didn’t think it was the right way to go now, either.

After hearing the governor’s proposals for spending stimulus money and adjusting Idaho’s state budget - largely by boosting road spending and cutting everything else - Senate Finance Chairman Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, said, “I applaud the governor in his desire to protect the infrastructure of the state - that’s important. But the infrastructure of the state is not just roads - it’s corrections, it’s state police, it’s education. We can’t afford to let that infrastructure slide. We only get a chance once to educate a child in the first grade or to teach ‘em to read. If we fail in that infrastructure, it’ll be much more painful … than in roads.”

Cameron said, “My preference isn’t to hit education that hard, but the committee will have to decide where it goes.” He predicted, “We’ll find middle ground,” and said, “We have all the pieces on the table. It’s our job to put this puzzle together.”

Idaho school districts will receive sharply increased funding from the federal government for special education through the IDEA program under the federal stimulus - offsetting some of the districts’ own local funds they’ve been putting into the federally required programs. Under questioning from Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, the governor’s budget director, Wayne Hammon, said, “It will relieve pressure in the local district so they can … soften the blow of the reduction in state funds.” However, he said, the governor is urging districts not to commit that money to ongoing needs, like salaries, out of fear that the federal boost may not last beyond two years. The Obama Administration has said it wants this to be the new permanent funding level for IDEA, but Otter told Eye on Boise on Tuesday, “I don’t believe it.” He added, “I’d be happy. And we’re not burning any bridges, so in two years if we figure that out, great, take that other 20 percent that they haven’t been giving us, then we can convert that to improving classroom teachers by paying ‘em more.” But for now, he said, he’s skeptical.

Gov. Otter’s budget director made it clear to JFAC this morning that the governor’s plan to fund eight major road projects around the state with federal stimulus money - including the Dover Bridge and the Vista Interchange - is dependent on the Legislature also approving additional GARVEE bonding to continue bond-funded projects already under way in high-priority highway corridors. “The governor has come to these conclusions on the assumption that the Legislature extends bonding authority,” Hammond told lawmakers. If not, he said, the governor would move stimulus money into the projects that otherwise would be funded with bonds.

Sen. Nicole LeFavour, D-Boise, asked Wayne Hammon, the governor’s budget director, “You want to increase taxes for roads, spend stimulus for roads, borrow for roads and cut education. … I’m truly trying to understand … (why the governor would want) to have education suffer that much.” Hammond responded, “That’s a very good question. … Nobody likes cutting budgets. The governor  believes that fixing our infrastructure is an immediate need, that we must do something.” Schools are being protected from cuts in the current year, Hammon said; they’ll experience cuts next year like all other state agencies.

“The governor’s first priority is to protect jobs,” Wayne Hammon, Gov. Butch Otter’s budget director, told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning as he began presenting the governor’s recommendations for spending $1.24 billion in federal economic stimulus money. “People think there’s a $1 billion bucket of money hidden somewhere behind Sen. Cameron’s chair or something,” he told the committee. “You all know that’s not the case. There are literally hundreds of tiny buckets of money … that are dedicated to specific activities and specific projects that have to be appropriated.”

When the governor and his stimulus committee sorted through more than a thousand proposals from local governments, charities and businesses across the state for a slice of the stimulus pie, “The committee and the governor came to the understanding that the fastest way to put the most Idahoans back to work in good-paying jobs is through programs we already have, and that there was no need to reinvent the wheel or start picking and choosing across the state,” Hammon said. That’s why, instead funding any of those requests, Otter is recommending putting the $45 million in discretionary funds into water and road projects.

Gov. Butch Otter is endorsing the first-ever cuts in public schools funding in Idaho, saying the $1.24 billion in federal economic stimulus funds he’s decided to accept aren’t enough to stave off the cuts. Otter, who released his recommendations for taking the stimulus money late today, also called for sticking to plans lawmakers endorsed earlier – before the federal stimulus bill passed – to cut 5 percent across the board from personnel costs statewide.“The governor recommends keeping this necessary cost-cutting measure in place in all agency budgets drawing from the general fund,” his stimulus plan said.

Asked on Tuesday about the prospect of cutting schools when the state stands to receive a big boost from the stimulus, Otter told Eye on Boise, “Yeah, sure it bothers me, but I understand why. Because these are all ongoing needs and they can’t all be satisfied by this one-time plug of money.” Otter said he liked the idea of keeping reserve funds intact, despite making the cuts to schools. “It’s still good to have that rainy-day fund – it’s still good to have that equalizer between what-if and what-if-not,” he said. “And I’m still convinced that this thing isn’t going to be over with in just one or two years.”

After applauding a group of young Irish dancers and declaring “Irish-American Heritage Month in Idaho” this morning, Gov. Butch Otter reflected a bit on his first meeting yesterday with his executive stimulus committee, which includes three former governors and five former state budget directors. “I’m feeling good about it, from the aspect that we now understand the limitations and the rules, if you will, the rules and the regulations,” he told Eye on Boise. “My gosh, we had 35 years of institutional memory setting there. They all had holdbacks and they all had small recessions, John Evans had one of the biggest in ‘81-‘83. Anyway, it was great.”

Otter said the kind of guidance he wanted was “the institutional memory and direction and discipline that each and every one of ‘em brought. They’d say, ‘Boy, don’t do this because I remember when we had to do that. Be careful of getting any of this money into the ongoing needs.’ … I got a lot of that. There were some great questions from all three former governors.” Otter met with his committee for two and a half hours yesterday, he said. Asked what comes next, he said, “I meet with them again tomorrow and show ‘em my draft, we look at my draft, if we have a fairly good understanding and acceptance of the draft I hopefully will be submitting that to the Legislature three days ahead of my own pre-set schedule, and quite a few days ahead of the federal government’s schedule.” That’d put Otter’s presentation of his revised budget proposal to lawmakers on Monday.

Despite national reports that Idaho Gov. Butch Otter was among a few governors who would reject federal stimulus money, Otter said Friday that he’ll take most – if not all – of the cash. “I’m gonna hold my nose, and I’m gonna take it,” he told the Idaho Press Club. The transportation money, in particular, carries strings that require the state to accept all or none of it, Otter said. “If you reject one dollar of that, they take it all – so you’ve got to reject all of it or none of it.” The remainder of Idaho’s roughly $1 billion in stimulus funds is mostly for either education or health and human services, and Otter said he’ll rely on guidance from state schools Superintendent Tom Luna and state Health and Welfare Director Dick Armstrong on those funds. Luna is calling for accepting “every penny” of the education funds, and Armstrong built his Medicaid budget around the anticipated federal help.

“I’ve never said that I wouldn’t take any of the stimulus package,” Otter said. “It’d been my druthers that they didn’t do it in the first place, and didn’t do it the way they did it. You know, if you’d put it all into jobs creation or jobs retention, to me that would have been much more acceptable.” But with the money on its way, Otter said he’s ready to take it, providing it doesn’t obligate the state to replace the federal funds when they end by raising state taxes. You can read my full story here in today’s Spokesman-Review.

The Associated Press is reporting that Gov. Butch Otter has told lawmakers if they don’t back $125 million in GARVEE bonds for six ongoing Connecting Idaho projects in fiscal year 2010, he’ll redirect millions from transportation-related federal stimulus dollars to Connecting Idaho, instead.

“That’s after some legislators expressed reluctance about approving more bonds, because past proceeds haven’t been spent on projects yet and they fear giving Idaho Transportation Department managers too much at once,” AP reporter John  Miller reports. “If Otter follows through, 10 Idaho projects slated for $202 million in federal stimulus funding might go empty handed. Rep. George Eskridge, a backer of a new Dover Bridge in northern Idaho that could get some $40 million from the stimulus, is skeptical about more bonding. But Otter’s threat can’t be taken lightly, Eskridge said. ‘The governor’s got a lot of leverage there, at least for those of us who have got those 10 projects.’ “

Why was the request of a disabled woman from Shoshone for $34,000 to pay off credit card debt among the $4.7 billion in stimulus funding requests that Gov. Butch Otter received? Asked if she really expected to get anything, Melody Russell told the Assoicated Press, “To be honest, no. … But I can always wish and hope,” said Russell, whose debt is from the family’s crushing medical bills. “I mainly wanted the governor to know that there’s people here who that stimulus is not going to help at all. My 10-year-old was telling me the other day, her clothes were getting a little small.” Click here to read the full story from AP reporter John Miller, plus see some of the North Idaho projects on the lists of requests, from school renovations to new libraries and fire stations. Click below to read Melody Russell’s heartfelt letter to the governor requesting the funds.

The list is now final: The Idaho Transportation Board has approved $28 million in local highway projects to be targeted with federal economic stimulus funds, and $149.9 million in state highway projects, including the Dover Bridge, the Vista Interchange, and six other projects around the state. Plus, as directed by the stimulus bill, $5.9 million would go to an enhancement project, “hardscaping” at the 10-Mile Interchange. That adds up to $183.9 million - about $2 million more than the stimulus actually will send to Idaho for such road projects. That may mean that not all of the local projects get funded, or that the first ones in get the money; some of those still are being defined. The board also has approved $18.4 million in public transit projects. All of these recommendations still must go to Gov. Butch Otter, and then he’ll make his proposals to the Legislature, which will set budgets - which Otter then signs into law.

The eight major state highway projects, which earlier had been estimated to cost $182 million on their own, now come in at $149.9 million. They are: Dover Bridge replacement, $36.8 million; US 95 Moscow Mountain Passing Lane in Latah County, $3.9 million; White Bird Grade to Chain-Up Area on US 95, $5.2 million; Vista Avenue interchange, $43.4 million; US 93 Twin Falls Alternate Route, $40.4 million; I-86 Chubbuck Interchange to Pocatello Creek Interchange, $11.3 million; US 20 Henry’s Lake Flat Passing Lanes, $3.5 million; and SH 48 Rigby High School to Yellowstone Highway, $5.4 million.

FactCheck is a Web site worth checking regularly. And they are pretty even-handed in their criticism.

They point out problems in President Obama’s Tuesday night speech at a research piece here. (But then, you knew the U.S. didn’t really invent the automobile, didn’t you?)

They point out problems with some common GOP criticisms of the stimulus plan here. (That train from Disneyland to Vegas? Not really in the bill.)

… which movie would it be?

This video, courtesy of Funny or die, weighs in. (Hint: Not “Slumdog Millionaire.”)

The $787 billion economic stimulus bill to be signed tomorrow by President Obama “is not the end of what we need to do,” U.S. Sen. Patty Murray said Monday.

She said the package, which includes billions for transportation, education, unemployment benefits and other help, was the best compromise on a controversial plan. But more remains to be done, she said, to shore up the banking industry and deal with the rapid increase in home foreclosures. Members of Congress have been warned that Obama’s budget proposal, to be released soon, will be a tough budget “in terms of cutbacks,” she said.

Murray was in Olympia Monday, meeting with Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, House Speaker Frank Chopp and other state officials.

The plan will help state budget writers somewhat. It includes $2 billion in new money for Medicaid, $2 billion for cleanup work at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, as well as $812 million in state stabilization money, most of it for education.

“That was a significant debate,” Murray said of the stabilization money. Key lawmakers, she said, were concerned about accountability over how that state money gets spent.

“There was a lot of concern among them about sending money out to the state that wasn’t going to be accountable, and having, a year from now, midnight basketball thrown back at us if that’s what the money was spent for,” she said.

And with the state wrestling with a budget shortfall estimated at at least $6 billion, Murray said that state lawmakers will still have tough choices to make. Lawmakers were clearly hoping for more state dollars, she said, but are grateful for the federal help nonetheless.

Some $500 million in new cash for the state’s roads and bridges will be largely up to the state Department of Transportation and local transportation authorities to divide up, she said.

But Murray urged patience, saying the money will take time to work its way into the economy.
“I think my worst fear is people are going to think things are better next Friday,” she said. Some economists, she cautioned, say that the stimulus might not start turning around the economy until the end of the year.

“But the alternative of doing nothing,” she said, “we would see an impact almost immediately.

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, writing on her blog, says that the federal stimulus bill “is not a state bailout bill.”

The money it includes for state “is just not big enough to make up for the deep dive our state revenues have taken” she writes. And the Senate version had less than originally proposed for both state budgets and building/renovating schools. Writes Brown:

The tax cuts in the bill are popular and everyone could use a little extra cash, but from an economic stimulus perspective, direct infrastructure investment would create more jobs and more flexible allocations to states would save more jobs.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and Brown’s Republican colleagues have both said that they’re frustrated by Democratic legislative leaders’ slow pace enacting cuts. Brown has said that she didn’t want to cut people off of health care or aid, for example, only to find out later that federal help or changing economic news rendered those cuts unecessary.

Two key numbers will come next week, Brown writes. On Monday, President Obama’s slated to sign the final version of the stimulus bill. And on Thursday (Brown says Tuesday in the blog post), the state’s economic weather forecasters will deliver an unusual early “preliminary forecast” of state revenues.

Brown’s clearly not expecting good news, writing that those two numbers will give lawmakers critical information “about how much larger our budget-writing challenge is than the one facing the governor just two months ago.” She writes:

“That’s when our conversation with the public about a positive direction forward will begin in earnest.”

What’s that mean? Turning to the public and asking for support of at least some additional taxes in order to support critical programs. Unlike Gregoire, who pledged — and delivered — a no-new-taxes budget proposal, Brown has for months been hinting that the solution the state’s deep budget woes is likely to include some tax increases. That, after all, is what’s happened in Olympia in every other economic downturn for the past 40 years.

And Brown is convinced that voters, if shown the need, will support paying more. In late 2002, for example, Washingtonians supported a 9-cent gas tax increase and vehicle sales tax hike in order to raise billions of dollars for transportation projects across the state. They voted to make it easier for schools to raise property taxes. Locally, voters in Spokane have increased their own taxes to pay for mental health treatment, and in Central Puget Sound, as recently as December, they’ve done the same thing for rail and transportation projects.

Brown is largely sticking to a course of action she laid out more than two months ago at a legislative forum hosted by Greater Spokane Inc., a local business group.  In this clip, watch how she responds to budget criticism from Rep. Bill Hinkle, a Republican from Cle Elum.

(Tech note: This works in Internet Explorer and Safari; I haven’t gotten it to work in Firefox. Also, to replay this clip, hit refresh on your browser first.)

The White House has posted a list of what President Obama’s stimulus plan would mean for Washingtonians.

It doesn’t detail some of the major investments in education and transportation infrastructure that’s being planned. It’s more of a consumer’s-eye-view of the plan.

From it:

•
Creating or saving 79,700 jobs over the next two years. Jobs created will be in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with over 90% in the private sector. [Source: White House Estimate based on Romer and Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” January 9, 2009.]
•
Providing a making work pay tax cut of up to $1,000 for 2,450,000 workers and their families. The plan will make a down payment on the President’s Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, designed to pay out immediately into workers’ paychecks. [Source: White House Estimate based on IRS Statistics of Income]
•
Making 67,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable. By creating a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college, this plan will give 3.8 million families nationwide – and 67,000 families in Washington – new assistance to put college within their reach. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of U.S. Census data]
•
Offering an additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 404,000 workers in Washington who have lost their jobs in this recession, and providing extended unemployment benefits to an additional 44,000 laid-off workers. [Source: National Employment Law Project]
•
Providing funding sufficient to modernize at least 138 schools in Washington so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy. [Source: White House Estimate]

Hat tip: Jerry Cornfield.

This may be a little macro for this blog, but CNN.com has put together a good Q-and-A about the economic stimulus package. If you’re trying to get your mind around some of this stuff, it’s a good place to start.

The post starts with a question that a lot of us have asked: Instead of giving huge sums to banks, why not give $10,000 to each family in the country? Wouldn’t that stimulate the economy?

Two economists answer. One, Lakshman Achuthan, managing director, Economic Cycle Research Institute, is dubious about the $10,000 plan.

“The government could give money to you or me, and that would create demand, which could be a very good way to break the recession. But you and I are not very confident about the economy, and if you think about what I’ll do, there’s a good chance I’m going to save it.

But the government is looking to have that money get spent and to have it multiplied somehow. Our economy is based on people spending money. So people saving money doesn’t help.”

Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick will vote against the economic stimulus bill later today, Minnick spokesman John Foster said a few minutes ago. A vote is expected later today. Republican Rep. Mike Simpson has said he will also vote against the bill/Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman.

Question: Do you support or oppose the proposed economic stimulus bill?

Echoing similar plans in the other Washington, Senate Democrats in Olympia Tuesday detailed their plans to combine “green jobs” with a renewed push for conservation and alternative sources of power.

“We now have a partner in the federal government in a way that we haven’t had a partner in the past,” said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane. The Obama administration wants to spend $150 billion and create 5 million new jobs over the next decade with clean-energy efforts.

In Olympia, some of the proposals touted Tuesday were low-tech, like boosting efforts to weatherize drafty homes.

Others look further into the future. With some help from tax breaks, for example, Sen. Fred Jarrett said, he envisions electrical charging stations dotting Interstate 5 “from Vancouver to Tijuana.” When the parking lots full of charged cars aren’t driving, he said, they can be tapped as a massive battery to feed electricity back into the power grid at peak times.

Sen. Tracey Eide, D-Federal Way, wants to reduce driving by encouraging auto insurers to offer some insurance plans linked to miles driven.

Among the skeptics: Todd Myers, who works for a conservative think tank called the Washington Policy Center. Lawmakers are gambling millions of dollar clutching at the latest “eco-fads,” he said, when they should be encouraging the private sector for better fixes.

“They were wrong on electric cars, biofuels and green buildings,” he said. “Now they want to create charging stations. But a few years back they were talking about the hydrogen highway.”
Myers thinks a better solution would be to charge people for their carbon emissions – encouraging them to limit the pollution – and spend the money on tax breaks to encourage innovation.

“These decisions are not best made in Olympia, Myers said. “They’re best made in Redmond, Seattle and the rest of the state.”