Ag and Rural Caucus for April
| Better Practices 6:30 pm Thursday 4 April Ranked Choice Voting Katie Haven, Okanogan County/LD 7 Kari Bull, FairVote Washington https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88689149657?pwd=R3dXbFRpYVUyeGVhb3ErTFI0QXlpZz09 Policy Briefing 6:30 pm Thursday 18 April Wood Pellet Production in Longview Jessica Marcus, Head of Public Affairs, DRAX https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85907982157?pwd=MU4vV3E3VGZ5VU02dnhvZjg2b3hKZz09 Paste link into browser. |
When Democrats do not want to be democratic
CD 4 primary results in 2022
| Dan Newhouse | 37,880 | GOP |
| Doug White | 37,339 | Democrat |
| Loren Culp | 32,163 | GOP |
| Jerrod Sessler | 18,226 | GOP |
| Brad Klippert | 15,232 | GOP |
| Corey Gibson | 5,018 | GOP |
| Benny Garcia | 2,122 | GOP |
| Jacek Kobiesa | 480 | GOP |
| WRITE-IN | 145 | |
| Democrat | 37,339 | |
| GOP | 111,121 |
| Better Practices: How about Ranked Choice Voting? RCV has earned currency in blue jurisdictions in the Puget Sound; Seattle voted in 2022 to use RCV. It has earned a reputation as a “good government” Democratic idea, both a capital “D” and small “d” democratic. Reality is not quite that simple. Early adopters are Alaska and Maine, with Oregon and Nevada voting in the next year or so…joining Cambridge, San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, Minneapolis and St Paul. The concept is that you as the voter may use your ballot to mark your and second and third choices as well as your first choice. If your first-choice candidate falters your vote is transferred to your second choice and so forth. Think through some of the RCV implications and bring them for Katie this Thursday. |
| Policy Briefing: Wood Pellet Processing – Sustainable? Southwest Washington is debating an economic development project, again. This time it is a wood pellet production facility. Before that was NW Innovation Works which was to convert fracked natural gas to produce methanol and ship it to China for plastics. The governor vetoed it. Actually, it was Ecology who denied the permits. Before that it was Millennium Bulk Terminals trying to ship coal out of Longview. It, too, failed to get Ecology approval. Will this time go better for the workers and economies of Cowlitz County? Wood pellets as a fuel has its own challenges. Skeptics pose whether burning wood pellets is really carbon neutral as advertised. There are questions, too, about whether there is enough waste wood to supply the proposed plant without harvesting standing timber. DRAX is the proposer. DRAX is rooted in the UK’s coal industry but DRAX is also a leader in the phase out of coal. “In 2003, the UK’s biggest coal power station took its first steps away from the fossil fuel which defined electricity generation for more than a century. It was in that year that Drax Power Station began co-firing biomass as a renewable alternative to coal.” DRAX is an international pioneer in substituting biomass for coal. Cowlitz County is in good company, even if it is not really comfortable. Europe is tied up in knots about biomass. Listen to EU’s green energy spokesperson: “[Franz] Timmermans himself has said that without biomass the EU will be unable to achieve its clean energy goals. ‘We need biomass in the mix, but we need the right biomass . . .’” Sweden, Finland, and Estonia are less conflicted. They lobby that biomass combustion is “sustainable”. Jessica Marcus has generously offered to talk with us about her company’s proposal. There is no question that the DRAX proposal is controversial. This is an opportunity to talk with an advocate. Don 31 March 2024 |
Washington’s first-two-past-the-post system allowed Doug White to contest the 2022 General Election in CD 4.
Join Katie and Kari Bull of FairVote Washington this Thursday to talk through RCV and how it operates.
Don
2 April 2024
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2024.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2024.
Copyright © 2024 Ag and Rural Caucus, All rights reserved. Ag and Rural Caucus of State Democratic Central Committee
Our mailing address is: Ag and Rural Caucus 2921 Mud Creek Rd Waitsburg, WA 99361