New licenses OK at the border

Enhanced driver’s licenses soon will be available to Washington motorists that will be accepted in lieu of passports at border crossings with British Columbia.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed legislation for it Friday.

Available in January 2008, the enhanced licenses, part of a pilot project endorsed by U.S. Homeland Security, will cost $40 and be loaded with proof of citizenship and other information easily scannable at the border. They are a less-expensive alternative to a $97 passport expected to be required for land and sea travel between the U.S. and Canada in June 2009.

Regular driver’s licenses also are being accepted at the border until June 2009.

House budget: Millions of dollars to train first-year medical and dental students in Spokane. Hundreds of thousands of dollars to create an online inventory of 200,000 historic photographs stored in a Spokane museum. Millions of dollars for research at Eastern Washington University and Washington State University.

Those are among the items in a two-year, $29.8 billion operating budget proposed Tuesday by the House of Representatives. More than three quarters of that money would be spent on public schools and human services. “This budget is focused on children and families,” said Rep. Helen Sommers, D-Seattle.

Healthy kids: About 38,000 fewer children across Washington soon will be uninsured under legislation signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Gregoire.

Coverage is either free or on a sliding scale based on the family’s annual income. The expansion will cost around $60 million in state and federal money.

Taxing online transactions: Saying it will level the playing field between in-state and out-of-state businesses, Gov. Gregoire signed a measure Thursday that encourages Internet and catalog companies to collect and submit state sales taxes on purchases made by Washington residents.

Washington will join 21 other states that have passed legislation to become members of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project. More than 1,000 companies have voluntarily agreed to begin collecting and distributing sales taxes to any state that agrees to become a member of the project.

Washington may see an influx up to $40 million annually.