Early in my career I sponsored legislation to increase public safety around oil transport and was the first local elected official to take a stand against making our waterfront one of the largest oil storage facilities on the west coast. I am working hard to ensure that we take the necessary steps to ensure the health of Vancouver Lake and preserve water quality, fish habitat and the economic benefits of the sailing and crewing that helps our local businesses prosper.
As Vice-Chair of Transportation, I helped negotiate a transportation package that finishes projects in process, invests in the low carbon future, ensures freight mobility, avoids adverse impacts on vulnerable communities, and takes care of what we have more than any other package. I have worked to upgrade our rail system to provide cost effective movement of goods and worked for seven years with both Oregon legislators and Republican members to find a solution and replace the I-5 bridge. The best bridge is the one that gets built. Cutting ribbons on new projects may be nice but letting our existing infrastructure deteriorate is expensive and unwise. We declined to raise gas taxes as our country emerged from the pandemic. We are spending millions of dollars to protect salmon on the journey to the ocean and our orcas in Puget Sound, but dense suburban communities upstream with old septic systems are also part of the problem. Other states have created ways to bring those old systems up to date and prevent the spoiling of our environment. I want to work on solutions to problems, not just expensive band-aids.