By Bill Lucia | Editor
Light rail plans for the new Interstate 5 bridge over the Columbia River have been thrown off track as costs surge. Local officials aren’t happy about it. “We thought we were in a partnership on how this could look in Vancouver. We’ve had pretty good communication. Then boom, things stopped,” said Vancouver, Washington, Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle.
Also in today’s edition…
Six victims have been recovered from the Longview mill site.
Trump’s executive order on mail-in voting withstands a round in court.
And, a lawsuit against Washington over undercover license plates.
News tips, feedback, questions? Email us: [email protected]
Rising costs have led state leaders in Washington and Oregon to pursue the building of a new bridge on I-5 across the Columbia River in phases. (Photo by Grant Stringer/States Newsroom)
By Jerry Cornfield
Local officials in Vancouver are upset that plans to bring the light rail service into town, near the city library, are getting put off indefinitely. And they worry that the end of the line could be a station constructed above freight train tracks near the city’s waterfront because there’s no timeline for designing the final leg of the route.
As it is, service on the initial stretch to the waterfront is at least a decade away and requires federal funding that isn’t locked in. The light rail service would be an extension of Portland’s Metropolitan Area Express, or MAX, Yellow Line.
The expected cost of the project has ballooned from a high-end estimate of $7.5 billion to around $14 billion. Earlier this year, Gov. Bob Ferguson and others committed to focusing in the near-term on core components that Washington and Oregon can afford. The hope is that cars could be driving over the new bridge by 2035.
“There is no money to build light rail in the existing funding. That is the budget reality,” said Brionna Aho, the governor’s communications director.
Members of the Washington National Guard’s Homeland Response Force have been supporting first responders in the aftermath of the failure of a chemical tank at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging plant in Longview. (Photo courtesy of Washington National Guard)
By Jake Goldstein-Street
Six employees missing after a southwest Washington chemical tank blast have been recovered, authorities said Thursday afternoon.
This brings the confirmed death toll to eight, and leaves three victims still unaccounted for and presumed dead from the catastrophic tank failure on Tuesday at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging plant in Longview. Two were previously confirmed dead.
It remains unclear how the tank failed. Federal chemical safety investigators have launched a probe to determine the circumstances that led up to the accident.
Meanwhile, water contaminated with the chemical is being flushed through a local ditch system. The goal is to dilute it to the point where it can be released into the Columbia River. Officials have said drinking water in the area remains safe.
By Jonathan Shorman
A federal judge has declined to block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting voting by mail, finding that it was too early to challenge the directive.
The decision on Thursday by D.C. District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, represents a setback for Democratic groups, lawmakers and others that have sued to stop the order ahead of the midterm elections.
The order seeks to block states from sending ballots through the mail except to voters on lists provided by states to the Postal Service. It also instructs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state.
By Shaanth Nanguneri
The Trump administration is suing Washington and three other Democratic-led states, arguing the states have wrongly denied undercover license plates to federal agents. It marks the latest escalation between state sanctuary immigration policies and the federal government’s aggressive deportation campaign.
ICYMI
Judge sides with WA in dispute over $4M grant canceled during DOGE era | Jake Goldstein-Street
Thanks for reading The Daily Standard. Did you know our weekend digest is also free? Sign up here. And if you enjoyed today’s edition, please forward to a friend. Increasing our readership helps us cover more news.