Ag and Rural Caucus Verhey Forum

A couple of notes

I am sending on two notes this morning.

The first is from Steve Verhey below about a conversation and activist group he is forming to cope with current events.

The second is the link to WSDOT’s survey on its summary of transportation alternatives on the Lower Snake River. The survey assesses your response to its barge, road and railway findings report.

I found the report incomplete and, in part, misleading. It claims that barges are “generally faster” than rail and are “typically cheaper”. This is the first time I have read that barge traffic is faster and more timely than rail.

The cost factor is serious but should look to increasing the competitiveness of rail by breaking up the monopoly of BNSF and UP. The solution is there and at a modest cost: Re-establish the link between BNSF and UP at Rosalia to give shippers a choice. And then extend the short line network to Pasco to add one more choice.

A puzzle, too, is why WATCO’s Great Northwest line from Lewiston to Ayer and on to Pasco is seldom part of the discussion.

Today is the deadline to complete the survey. If interested, follow the link, read the report, and record your own assessment.

Don
6 December 204

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Steve Verhey, chair of the Environment and Climate Caucus, is starting a group.in response to the election and “getting ready for what’s coming.”

Please response to Steve if you would like to participate. I am encouraging Steve in this effort but demurred in involving ARC directly.

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Steve Verhey’s Invitation

For a while after the election, I stopped paying attention to all the hot takes, but now it seems like it’s time to start getting ready for what’s coming. Here are some thoughts.

• Our parts of the state will be particular targets of some of the new Republican policies, especially with respect to immigration.
• It is good to have a way for us all to communicate in near-real time. I will make a 2025 version of this list using new contact information as it becomes available. It would help me if you could email me directly (verheys@hotmail.com) the contact information of new officers for your LPO post-reorg.
• If someone has a better idea about how to accomplish the above, please lmk.
• I think it might be a good idea for us to have a small number of things that we read in common. This would be optional, of course, and could include books, podcasts, substacks, and the like.
• We might even consider a monthly, or, if that’s too ambitious, quarterly zoom to discuss developments and trade ideas and information.

This is (duh) an email, and that works well for many of us. I am moving as much of my political communication to Signal. If you would like to find me there, I am steverhey.51 .

Here are some possible common-information items. I have (or soon will) read/watched all of them:

• On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder
• Our Malady, Timothy Snyder
• Of Boys and Men, Richard V. Reeves
• Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Election, Pod Save America (link)
• Heather Cox Richardson’s daily emails
• Pod Save America 2-3x weekly

The first three are books, but there are surely other serial items worth attention. We don’t want the list to be too long to manage, but suggestions welcome.

In solidarity and resistance,

Steve