Tom Warne Report, 26 May 2013
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Gov. Jay Inslee signed an $8.7 billion transportation budget this week that sends money to road maintenance and continues financing for existing major projects in the state. A legislative compromise on the controversial Columbia River Crossing Project was cut out of the budget by Inslee, however, who said it would endanger federal funding and could result in the bridge not getting built.
The cut provision would have limited the Columbia River Crossing Bridge to $81 million in federal funding, and stated that if the Coast Guard did not approve the project’s building permit, then the money would instead be spent on the study of a new bridge design. Inslee said that if the Coast Guard did not issue the permit, there would be no need to study a new bridge design, because the state would lose the federal funding for the bridge and “there is no other viable option to building this bridge in the next 10 years,” he said.
“We’ve got to finish what we have started,” Inslee said to a crowd of supporters of the new package on the steps of the Capitol. “It is crunch time … There is a tooth fairy but there is no transportation fairy.”
