Sen. Sheldon Criticizes Inslee for Vancouver Oil Terminal Opposition

Posted

Sen. Tim Sheldon, D-Potlatch, said the rejection of the Vancouver oil terminal demonstrates a “bias by the Inslee Administration against major industrial projects outside the central Puget Sound area,” according to a press release. 

“I feel sorry for the people who would have gotten good, high-paying jobs — for the unionized workers and everyone else who would have benefitted,” he said in a press release. “The Inslee Administration has become a killing field for anything the Seattle environmental crowd opposes, and people who live anywhere else are the ones who suffer.”

Sheldon is elected as a Democrat but caucuses with Senate Republicans. 



On Tuesday of last week, the governor’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council recommended the state reject a $210 million shipping terminal proposed by Vancouver Energy. However, Inslee will have the final say. 

The press release states the governor has shown a pattern of opposing projects involving fossil fuels while ignoring any economic benefit to the state. In addition, it states the reasons for the denials can be applied to other projects as well.   

“What we are seeing is an attempt by urban special interest groups to realign our state. Instead of seeing us as part of the Pacific Northwest, sharing our interests with Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Alaska, they are drawing a big blue line around a West Coast nature preserve where cities like L.A., San Francisco, Portland and Seattle lord it over everyone else,” Shelton said in a press release. “I can’t blame labor unions for being furious with Inslee. This is part of a bigger problem affecting every one of us who live outside the central Puget Sound area. The Inslee Administration is writing new rules that will make our lives harder — from air regulations that will drive up the price of gas and electricity, to water regulations requiring perfection that can’t be measured by science. The Supreme Court’s Hirst decision makes it all but impossible to drill small household wells, which are critical to rural areas like mine, even though there is no evidence they cause a problem. Yet my urban colleagues in the Legislature stand in the way of a proper fix because they can’t see how this hurts the rest of us. In a session where urban interests hope to dominate the Legislature, this insensitivity to the rest of the state poses a real danger. Let’s call it what it is — a war on Washington — and declare that this has to stop.”