OPINION

Our View

There’s value in listening to our readers

By Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business

When we asked our readers to participate in our recent survey about their habits and priorities, they didn’t disappoint.

We had a terrific response, far exceeding our modest expectations.

We’re also happy to announce the winner of our survey drawing for the Dust Devils entertainment basket: Todd Nelson. Congratulations!

Among the many things we learned from our survey is that our readers are an extraordinarily loyal and unique audience. They’re generous, educated and like to give back to our community. They also made it clear they love our content.

Our readers, who are split evenly between Benton and Franklin counties, skew younger than other business journals across the nation. More than 74% are younger than 50. Our readers also span a variety of job sectors, from bluecollar to professional, and everything in between.

More than half have college degrees and 15% have attended trade schools.

The vast majority spend significant time with each edition of our newspaper, and we’re grateful for this. We were pleased so much of our content resonates, as more than 60% said they discussed an item they saw in our digital or print content and nearly half passed our content along to business associates or clients.

The survey showed encouraging news for the Tri-City real estate, construction and auto sales markets.

Many survey takers indicated their company or organization will be moving to a new location (26%), remodeling their office (27%), or expanding their facility or office (25%) in the next 12 months.

More than 29% will seek out a business loan, credit card or construction loan.

Nearly 37% plan to buy or sell their homes.

Our readers plan to buy vehicles, too. More than half plan to buy or lease a new car. About 82% plan to buy an RV or motorcycle/sport vehicle/snowmobile/ ATV. And more than 36% plan to buy an electric vehicle in the next 12 months.

Health care also is on our readers’ minds. Nearly 40% anticipate shopping for an employee medical plan in the coming year.

Mirroring national trends, nearly 60% said they care or make decisions for an elderly or disabled person.

We already know the Tri-Cities is a generous community, quick to step up to help those who are less fortunate. We love this about our readers: more than 50% have donated to a charity or have volunteered their time at a nonprofit in the past 12 months.

Thanks for taking the time to participate in our survey.

We’re glad we took the time to listen: It’s always the best way to learn about others.

Consequences too extreme to just ditch carbon fuels

President Joe Biden is unwisely “throttling up” plans to ditch carbon fuels unilaterally despite the extreme consequences of doing so. He wants to accelerate replacement of gas/ diesel vehicles with electrics (EVs), which will be recharged by electrical grids energized by solar, wind and hydropower – not coal, natural gas or nuclear fuels.

Additionally, in our state, Gov. Jay Inslee mimicked Berkeley, California, building codes by stopping the installation of natural gas stoves and water heaters. However, a federal appeals court overturned the ban. The court agreed with restaurant owners who argued the city ordinance bypassed federal energy regulations.

We are learning there are dramatic consequences to unilaterally dumping coal, oil and natural gas. The issue is not solely about greenhouse gas emis-

Legislative session yields decidedly mixed results

Depending on how you measure success, the recently concluded Washington legislative session was either really great, not as terrible as normal or a frustrating combination of progress and setbacks for the employer community.

Let’s start with the positive: Lawmakers took meaningful steps to address the state’s affordable housing crisis. They passed nine bills to increase housing supply, including legislation to speed up permitting of new development, condominium reform to encourage construction of condos and townhomes, and legislation to increase “missing middle” housing such as duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes and cottage housing.

None of these measures will solve our state’s housing problems, but it’s by far the most action lawmakers have taken on the issue in recent memory and these bills, combined with the record $1 billion allocated for new housing investments, will make a positive difference.

Lawmakers also passed legislation to enable professionals with licenses from other states to work in Washington, a long-needed move that will help address our workforce shortage. And they overwhelmingly approved a bill that will boost production of sustainable aviation fuel. These low-carbon fuels are critical for the aviation sector to cut emissions, and this legislation will help Washington attract new business investment to the state.

Staying positive, employers were relieved to see lawmakers pass a new two-year state budget without raising general taxes. This doesn’t mean legislators didn’t think about it. They spent more time than they should have talking about proposals to raise the real estate excise tax and to lift the voter-approved cap on property tax increases. In the end, those ideas were not approved, but we should expect them to return next year.

And after years of astonishing growth in the state budget, lawmakers slowed the growth in state spending to a still healthy 9%. This might not seem like a great accomplishment, but compared with the 24% growth we’ve seen recently, it’s a move in the right direction.

On a less-than-positive note, lawmakers failed to pass any kind of broad-based tax relief. This was disappointing, but not surprising. If they had really wanted to give taxpayers relief, they would have done it the previous year when they had an unprecedented

New coalition seeks to advocate for app-based workers

sions, but air, water, and land contamination from mining, smelting and landfills filling with high-tech waste.

The way Washingtonians work continues to change rapidly, and to remain competitive we need our policies to keep pace.

Residual fallout from the pandemic, including supply chain challenges, inflation and other market forces have radically changed the way businesses of every size operate.

consumers, growth opportunities for small businesses, and flexible earning opportunities for earners.

Don C. Brunell

Mitigating the impact of climate change is a commonly shared goal. However, what is not discussed are the consequences to “electrifying everything” using renewables. There are trade-offs.

For example, Texans learned their state needed to invest in natural gas electricity generation to protect against lengthy blackouts such as happened in February 2021. Additional reli-

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Fueled by the effects of pandemic restrictions, the modern workplace has fundamentally changed. Workers and consumers have sought flexibility and the marketplace has responded.

As a result, the app-based delivery economy flourished: from meals and groceries to household supplies, pet supplies and prescription medicine. The safety and convenience of app-based services have revolutionized the way consumers dine and shop.

The app-based economy has provided unparalleled convenience for

Over the past three years, appbased delivery services have become essential to ensuring that Washington’s small businesses are able to stay open and turn a profit.

These platforms have also provided life-changing earning opportunities for workers who might not previously have found a workable solution for their unique situation. Students earning able power is not only needed during extreme weather conditions, but to keep pace with population growth.

State lawmakers created a Texas Energy Insurance Program to support gas generators to backstop renewables. Wind power accounts for 30% of Texas’ electricity generation.

China, with 1,200 coal-fired electric plants, is the global leading emitter of CO2, yet the Chinese permitted more coal facilities last year than any time in the last seven years. At the same time in 2022, China led the world in installed wind and solar capacity, accounting for 37% of the worldwide increase.

China has a choke hold on minerals and metals required for EVs.

“Global demand for electric vehicle battery minerals (lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel) is projected to increase by between six and 13 times by 2040,” said Simon Michaux, a noted Australian-born geologist who works for Finland’s Geological Society.

Rare earth minerals (REM) – a group of 17 elements with similar qualities – are used in hundreds of high-technology products and military equipment. China dominates REM processing, technology and stockpiles.

The average smartphone contains at least 40 elements, and the average EV uses six times more critical minerals than a combustion car. An onshore wind plant needs nine times more mineral resources than an equivalent gas-fired power plant.

Engineering.com pointed out that copper is rarely discussed. It is critical for the entire electricity infrastructure regardless of whether transmission facilities are sending wind, natural gas, or nuclear generated electricity.

Copper is one of the few materials that can be recycled repeatedly without any loss of performance. Recycling copper is 85% more energy efficient than processing ore and reduces CO2 emissions by 65%.

Mining and smelting copper ore pollute the water, air and land. The number of such abandoned mine sites is estimated at 161,000 in 12 western states, with 33,000 degrading the environment, according to the Government Accountability Office.

According to a new S&P study, electric vehicles require two and a half times as much copper as an internal combustion engine vehicle. Its researchers learned that copper demand will double to 50 million metric tons annually by 2035. To put that number into perspective, S&P Global noted that it is “more than all the copper consumed in the world between 1900 and 2021.”

“Current copper reserves stand at 880 million tons. That is equal to approximately 30 years of production. But industry will need 4.5 billion tons of copper to manufacture just one generation of renewable technologies,” Michaux estimated.

The stakes are exorbitant. Why barrel forward putting our future in one energy portfolio without carefully weighing the consequences and understanding trade-offs?

Don C. Brunell is a business analyst, writer, and columnist. He retired as president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s oldest and largest business organization, and now lives in Vancouver. He can be contacted at theBrunells@msn.com.

JOHNSON, From page A7

$15 billion budget surplus.

They also drew down the state’s reserves to a level that might not be sufficient if the state enters a recession. Given the uncertainty in the economy and the potential for a recession sometime in the next year, they would have been wise to put aside more money for a rainy day.

Failure to address any of the unresolved issues with the state’s long-term care program will go down as an important missed opportunity. In February, a coalition of more than 200 Washington employers sent a letter to the governor and lawmakers urging them to either fix the outstanding issues with the program, or once again push pause. They did neither, so expect this issue to receive more attention this summer when employees begin to see a new payroll tax withheld from their checks.

One of the most challenging issue areas for employers was employment law, which saw passage of several new hurdles. They include ergonomics legislation that reversed a citizen’s initiative, rules that allow the state to set staffing quotas for warehouses, and an expansion of the list of circumstances where an employee can voluntarily leave work and be eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

Every legislative session is a mix of good and disappointing outcomes, and this one is no exception. Let’s hope the progress on long-standing issues like housing, workforce and taxes ends up overshadowing the multiple missed opportunities lawmakers had to act as champions for the economy.

Kris Johnson is president of the Association of Washington Business, the state’s chamber of commerce and manufacturers association.