Washington Farm Bureau is dedicated to the best interests of our farming community, which includes protecting our natural resources and enhancing ecological security. This equals economic security for our state, security that new unprecedented regulatory changes threaten to destabilize.

Newly mandated changes to Washington’s regulatory-review process are raising serious concerns for the agricultural community. For the first time, state regulations governing environmental impact statements are individually targeting the global lifecycle effects of certain products made or transported through Washington.

State officials claim this global-review process is nothing new, but that’s simply not the case. The State Environmental Protection Act was specifically created to limit unpredictability and to provide clear mitigation requirements for the development of community projects.

Arbitrarily altering the state’s long-standing regulatory review process by adding a new global outlook to the EIS scope increases uncertainty for businesses and communities and could severely threaten billions of dollars in major trade investments.

Expanding trade benefits our entire region – opening new markets for farmers and other Northwest commodities, creating needed jobs for skilled labor, and generating millions in new tax revenue to support key community services such as schools and first responders.

With trade supporting one in four jobs in the region, the export industry remains the backbone of the Northwest economy. Furthermore, the Northwest needs to expand export capabilities to keep up with growing competition. Canadian and other U.S. port regions are making substantial investments to take advantage of America’s growing trade with Asia, threatening our position as North America’s gateway to the continent.

Additionally, maintaining a strong, vibrant agricultural industry requires our state regulatory structure to create a viable pathway forward for trade infrastructure, not saddle it with ambiguity and possible legal action.

These controversial, and unnecessary, changes to the review of trade-related projects will have damaging long-term consequences to Washington’s economy and reputation, along with potentially devastating results for our farmers and our entire agriculture industry.

As the second-largest industry in the state, Washington’s 2012 agricultural production reached $9.89 billion. A key catalyst to this industry’s success is the reliable transportation and trade of commodities both nationally and internationally. Last year, $16.5 billion in agricultural products were transported and exported through port terminals on the Northwest coast.

Predictability is the bedrock of private investment and a keystone for the preservation and expansion of our state’s transportation infrastructure. Yet this expanded review process has already led to possible legal action by neighboring states, a bipartisan letter of concern to Congress, and a warning from the National Association of Manufacturers that Washington may be undermining U.S. trade policy and violating World Trade Organization rules.

Maintaining and protecting our ability to export commodities is critical to the future well-being of our agriculture community and Washington’s trade economy as a whole. Efforts should be focused on ensuring Washington remains a trade leader through private expansion.

Just last month, when attempting to explain the new regulatory process to a state Senate panel, Department of Ecology Director Maia Bellon declared that future reviews “will depend on the specific facts” of each project applying for permits.

With no standard guideline of what qualifies projects for expanded review, state regulators in effect have appointed themselves final arbiters of “winners and losers.” Our state has relied on the environmentally rigorous EIS review system with great success for decades. Why do we suddenly want to impede our own ongoing economic prosperity for no apparent reason? The new expanded review is an unfair process that could have dire economic implications for the entire region.