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Before our country, in haste, dives totally into renewable energy, we must carefully evaluate its impacts. By just focusing on eliminating natural gas, liquid fuels (gasoline and diesel) and coal to combat climate change, we ignore the effects of other forms of pollution generated by processes in which renewable energy components are made. Under the Green New Deal, the United States would become 100 percent reliant on renewable energy in a decade and eliminate CO2 producing...
Across the pond, London-based BP and Netherlands-headquartered Shell are looking to invest in innovative electric technology, which is very good news. The two international oil giants, both of which have oil refineries in northwest Washington, recognize the growth in battery storage capacity. Their investments should bring down costs for consumers and bring ground-breaking technology to market quicker. Making electric cars and new batteries for homes and power grids is a...
America’s drift away from our market-based economic system is perplexing. Equally, mystifying is the new push to replace entrepreneurs with government bureaucrats in planning and controlling services and products offered to us — the consumers. Scrapping capitalism is a very bad idea. History shows that socialist and communist regimes dominated by strong-armed dictators, such as in Venezuela, and Soviet-style politburos are ripe for economic collapse and suppression of fre...
Lots is written about students exiting college saddled with hefty student loans; however, the impact on retired parents went largely unnoticed. Recently, Wall Street Journal writer AnnaMaria Andriotis reported Americans over 60 years old are coming out of retirement and going back to work just to pay for their children’s education. On average, student borrowers in their 60s owed $33,800 in 2017, up 44 percent from 2010. Student loan debt for seniors rose 161 percent between 2...
The good news is Washington’s cherry crop is projected to be as good as 2018; however, absent tariff relief from the ongoing U.S.-China trade tiff, a key market will remain limited. When China’s tariff went from 10 percent to 50 percent last July, right in the middle of the harvest, exports to China went from the most profitable to the pits, Fox News reported. “Growers in Washington State, by far the largest producer of sweet cherries in the U.S., saw their bumper crop lose...
Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. That’s particularly true in difficult times when “business as usual” no longer works. As our national deficit approaches $22 trillion ($180,000 per taxpayer) and state and local governments deal with skyrocketing costs for health care, pensions, education and public safety, we will have to do things differently, or, in some instances, not at all. One way is to develop private-public partnerships to share costs and coord...
While many eyes are on trade talks between our country and China, America’s port leaders are positioning their seaports to compete for increasing volumes of container traffic. After container shipments surged in November — primarily from pre-tariff contracts —they plunged by year end, an impact of the U.S. and China trade war. Outbound container volume at the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach fell 11.8 percent in November from the same month in 2017. It was a...
Christmas is a difficult time for anyone grieving the death of a loved one. It is especially hard when they were slain in the line-of-duty while protecting our country. It hit home again last month when Army sergeants Eric Emond, 39, Brush Prairie, and Leandro Jasso, 25, Leavenworth, were killed in Afghanistan. Both were experienced elite soldiers who served multiple tours in combat zones. Normally, the fallen are remembered on Memorial Day, but thanks to a Maine family and...
The good news is Washington’s revenues continue to grow and projections for the next couple of years appear promising. That is welcome news, but it is sprinkled with caution about introducing new taxes. Our state’s Economic and Revenue Forecast Council (ERFC) quarterly update shows a whopping 17.3 percent increase in state income for the current biennium. That welcome announcement comes just in time for Christmas. For background, Washington’s budget is on a two-year cycle...
When our military is viewed as an employer, it has the same problem as the private sector; attracting qualified people to fill jobs. In today’s vibrant economy, there is an abundance of “Help Wanted” signs. Even though our armed forces have stepped up their enlistment bonuses, they still fall short of their recruitment goals. There are just fewer qualified people in the employment pool to fill jobs which require higher educational standards, more skills, a willingness to wo...
In the 1960s, there was a popular movie called: “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming.” The plot was a Soviet naval commander runs his sub aground off a Massachusetts coastal island and sends two English-speaking crewmen ashore to procure a boat with enough power to pull them free. The Russian sailors didn’t exactly blend in and chaos ensued. That was fiction, but today, American farmers face the hard facts that the Russians are invading our wheat markets world...
Last spring, Boeing revealed its proposed hypersonic passenger airliner which would fly much higher and faster than the Concorde — the only previous supersonic commercial airplane. For reference, supersonic jets fly over the speed of sound (660 miles per hour or Mach 1), while hypersonics surpass Mach 5 or 3,800 mph. Boeing told the annual American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics conference held in Atlanta its sleek new airplanes would travel at Mach 5, enabling t...
Editor’s note: Much of the content for this column came from the most recent edition of HR Magazine, which is the magazine for the Society of Human Resources Management. Since President Trump took office, the attention to social media has mushroomed. His pointed tweets are often the top news story each day. Twitter, Facebook and the other apps are pervasive and even though Google and some others have their share of problems preventing leaking of private information, they aren...
When one approaches the Tri-Cities, it is impossible to ignore Lampson International’s monstrous cranes in its Pasco assembly yard. Those gantries stand out like the Space Needle in Seattle and reach over 560 feet into the sky. Like the Space Needle, Lampson is built on a solid footing. Last month, Construction Review Online (CRO) ranked Lampson as the world’s third largest crane company. “Lampson International has been a world leader in the Heavy Lift and Transport indus...
With today’s tension and rancor, we need a dose of Yogi Berra’s wit and wisdom to put things into perspective. Let’s start with “You can observe a lot by just watching” because seeing what is happening now is very disconcerting. We need less sarcasm, and to alleviate the vilification of one another that we constantly witness in the news and on social media. To quote Yogi: “It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.” Yogi’s humorous way of...
Last April, Washington wheat, apple and cherry growers hoped U.S. and China trade negotiators would resolve differences and prevent imposition of damaging tariffs on our state’s leading crops. Unfortunately, that did not happened and the costs are adding up. Thousands of Washington farmers now find themselves on the front lines of a battle between the two largest economies in the world. Here’s what has happened so far. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump imposed a 25...
While most of our attention in the Pacific Northwest these days is on trade wars, tariffs and wildfires, there are critical talks underway between the U.S. and Canada over future allocations of the Columbia River system’s water. The two countries are renegotiating the Columbia River Treaty which went into effect in 1964. It is a 50-year agreement under which both nations can redo, providing there is a 10-year advanced warning. That occurred and negotiators are now busy meeting...
Since 2002, the U.S. Deptartment of Energy has funded construction of a $17 billion project to encase radioactive wastes in solid glass logs. It is scheduled to start operations in 2022 and treat more than 56 million gallons of hazardous liquids which are stored in tanks on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. It is called vitrification, a process by which the state of Washington and federal government agreed in 1989. It is complicated, time consuming and very costly. To speed up...
By DON C. BRUNELL Contributor The Jetsons television series about a space-age family featuring “Rosey the Robot” gave us a preview of life with robots, kiosks and interactive television. In 1962, it was a fictitious cartoon; however, in 2018, many of the Jetsons’ conveniences are a reality. Take fast-food restaurants, for example. Faced with a growing shortage of workers and increased costs, some are turning to robots to flip hamburgers and clean grills — mundane, unpleas...
Here’s a switch! Rather than closing another pulp and paper mill, a new one is under construction right here in Washington. Columbia Pulp’s plant on the Snake River will use a new technology that pulls cellulose out of the abundant straw left over from wheat and alfalfa harvests. The $184 million plant near Dayton is scheduled to open later this year. Traditionally, pulp comes from wood either grown specifically for paper making or as byproducts from sawmills. When fully ope...
On Sunday (May 27), actor/musician Gary Sinise will again co-host the National Memorial Day Concert from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. It will be the 29th annual concert on the 150th anniversary of Memorial Day. The format is much the same as in past years. Sinise and Criminal Minds star Joe Mantegna team with retired Army Gen. Colin Powell to remember those who have sacrificed for our country, our freedom and our way of life. It will attract millions of viewers across...
The late great philosopher Yogi Berra once proclaimed: “The future ain’t what it used to be.” It sure ain’t! Lots has changed over the last 60 years since Yogi was the catcher for the legendary New York Yankees. Hopefully, in the years ahead, we will experience a return of respect for one another and our way of life which has been a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. Today, there is too little civility and the public discourse consists of subtle and not-so-...
As we deal with our population growth, we must address sufficient supplies of drinkable fresh water for residential, commercial, agriculture, fisheries and industrial needs. Not only will our numbers continue to climb, but so will competing pressures for fresh water. While demographers can project population growth fairly accurately and planners are good at assessing future needs, nature controls the supply of rainfall and mountain snowpack; and, when it occurs. Too often prec...
Most of the 2.5 million annual Alamo visitors focus on the epic 1836 battle in which a small band of brave Texans was eventually overrun by the Mexican army. Folk heroes like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William Travis were among the Texans killed while fighting for independence from Mexico. However, the Alamo is more than a small Spanish-style church depicted on tourism brochures which barely withstood a 13-day pummeling from Mexican cannons. It is a large complex built...
It now looks like Boeing will add at least two more aircraft to the U.S. Air Force fleet which flies our country’s leaders around the world. They are the most recognizable — the 747s traditionally called “Air Force One.” The recent news that President Trump’s administration now approves replacing the current presidential jets with larger and more modern 747s cements the deal. It means the new Air Force One, a 747-8, could be flying presidents within five years. That’s go...
