Fueled by a parade of proponents who testified at a public hearing in Olympia Friday, legislation is beginning to work its way toward a possible vote on the floor of the Washington State Senate that urges President Barack Obama and the Congress to get U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, and help the state accent domestic priorities instead. Senate Joint Memorial 8014, similar to a resolution, says the President and the U.S. House and Senate should end the war in Afghanistan and begin “dramatically shifting our national priorities” by focusing on job creation; more money for social programs, public services and crumbling transportation systems; and addressing climate change.

Sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from Federal Way, Mercer Island, Lynnwood, Spokane and Wenatchee, a bill heard in the Washington House Transportation Committee Wednesday Feb. 1 if passed into law could help revolutionize transportation funding in the state. It would create a special state task force which would intend to “establish the governance structure and groundwork needed to transition” from gas and special fuel taxes to “a system based on a vehicle miles traveled fee.” The committee analysis of HB 2704 says in Washington since 2000 average annual costs of maintaining one lane mile in the state’s highway system have outpaced average annual growth in gas and diesel consumption by a factor of almost 60. The trend toward greater fuel efficiency and alternative fuels will continue, and vehicle miles traveled will continue a slow rise, requiring a new approach to meeting transportation system funding needs estimated at no less than $21 billion over the next decade, the bill analysis says.

The so-called Road User Future Funding Task Force would consist of 17 members, including four legislators, four from state agencies and nine appointed by the Governor. By October 1, 2014 the task force would have to issue recommendations to the governor and legislature on how best to meter miles, collect fees, protect privacy, and address uncertainties and public concerns about charging by the mile. The task force might also develop draft legislation for joint trials with neighboring states, and then if trials go well, help propose final legislation for implementation of a mileage charging scheme by 2022 or 2023.

As Washington state lawmakers grapple with either raising taxes or trimming $1.5 billion from the 2011-13 state budget because revenue projections have failed to keep pace with planned spending increases, a new report issued Jan. 31 by the state department of revenue finds Washington grants a wide variety of tax exemptions which add up to $29.3 billion for the current two-year budget period. The biggest single breaks in taxes paid to the state are almost $3 billion in business and occupation taxes on employee income and retail and use sales tax exemptions worth $3.2 billion on personal and professional services, $2 billion on food and food ingredients, and $1.6 billion on motor vehicle and special fuel.

Under state law the detailed report is issued every four years but does not make recommendations on what exemptions to maintain and which to end. Of the 642 exemptions granted, only 452 would be likely to increase revenues, the report states. Exemptions also refer to exclusions, deductions, preferential rates, tax deferrals and credits.

The report warns it’s not possible to say that the $29.3 billion in exemptions would yield the same amount in revenue if ended. (This is because once an exemption is lifted, the associated taxable business activity may decline in volume compared to before). Of the $29.3 billion in tax benefits dispensed by lawmakers, $24 billion is due to exemptions from taxes paid to the state. Exemptions to retail sales and use taxes and the business and occupation tax together account for about four-fifths of that $24 billion in state tax benefits dispensed. Another $5.3 billion in state-authorized tax exemptions come at the local government level.

Included in the report is a summary listing of all tax preferences which would yield some degree of revenue if curtailed. Others which exist but would yield no revenue if ended are so labeled, and marked in red. According to the itemized list, here are some of the largest state-level tax exemptions granted which would produce some amount of revenue if lifted.

Largest business and occupation tax exemptions granted 2011-2013

Largest retail sales and use tax exemptions granted 2011-2013

Largest other tax exemptions granted 2011-2013

To date, there has been no comprehensive state review of the quantifiable economic benefits of the $29.3 billion in state-authorized tax exemptions in the current biennium.

RELATED: State of Washington spending up 57 percent from 1999-2011, Public Data Ferret.

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A series of construction and expansion projects continue to unfold in the new year in the King County (Wash.) Library System, following voter approval in 2004 of a $172 million bond issue. Courtesy of the library system’s staff we are happy to present a color-coded interactive map including links to project overview/status pages for each facilitity. Each branch name when clicked leads to a KCLS page detailing the respective project. We will seek to keep this map updated here, but going forward, you will always be able to find the most recent version of it at the KCLS 2004 bond-funded projects page. The projects page has additional information, including Frequently Asked Questions.

According to a portion of the December 2011 “Dashboard” report presented to the KCLS board by staff, highlights of the capital improvement plan building program already achieved in 2012 or expected to be completed this year include new facilities in Newcastle and Duvall and expansions in Auburn, Bellevue, and Lake Forest Park. New facilities are expected to progress this year toward an eventual construction start (2013 or later) at Vashon Island, Federal Way (320th St.) and Tukwila. In addition, non-bond construction of new libraries for Renton and Renton Highlands have cleared the design phase.

USER INSTRUCTIONS: Simply click on any branch name below (not the nearby dot) for more project-specific information. Our special thanks to KCLS Web Services Manager Lisa Hill for her assistance developing and sharing a WordPress-embeddable version of the KCLS code we used for the live map here.

A recently released report from a special task force convened by Washington Governor Chris Gregoire says Washington state should settle for no less than $21 billion of a needed $50 billion in surface transportation spending over the next decade to preserve the system and make strategic corridor investments. But if the legislature will be stepping up to that lesser challenge in a big way, it is proceeding quite cautiously so far in the current session. The centerpiece transportation funding bill in the senate, SB 6455, would if passed in current form garner by 2023 little more than one-twentieth of the recommended $21 billion.

According to a new federally-funded study by University of Washington researchers, cautionary guidelines developed by Washington state agencies on physician-prescribed painkilling opiates for patients suffering from chronic pain preliminarily appear to be correlated with important overall risk reductions among one large sub-group of patients: injured workers seeking compensation through the state’s Department of Labor and Industries. Prime among these are reductions in related deadly overdoses; drops in number of claimants who were prescribed opioids; and a steady decline in the percent of workers who were being compensated for disability while using prescribed opioids, sometimes with little improvement, for pain treatment. Because of the potential for abuse and dependence, public health experts increasingly want to foster greater oversight of prescription opiates. The “yellow flag” educational program directed at physicians may very well help explain the measured changes although more data is needed in coming years to strengthen the connections.

These are the key findings of the new study published late last month in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine by researchers at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, the university’s departments of Environmental and Ocupational Health Sciences, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries (DLI). The study was funded by the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and the National Center For Injury Prevention and Control.

Shoreline plans to roll out an online survey of residents in the first quarter of 2012 to help officials decide if it should join a growing group of Washington jurisdictions which ban use of tobacco products in their parks and sometimes other outdoor public spaces as well. At a city council meeting last night, members considered as a study item a detailed information packet including a city staff memo on the policy-making process and written presentations from King County – which is taking a regional leadership role in promoting smoke-free public parks. A key provision identified by city staff in the packet is that there is no money for extra enforcement. That would depend on hoped-for effects of signage and enforcement by local parks users and any police or parks staff who happened to observe violations while conducting other work tasks.

The chairman of the City of Auburn’s Municipal Services Committee, Bill Peloza, says he’ll be asking some questions about the future of the town’s traffic safety automated camera enforcement program called PhotoSafe when the panel meets Monday night. The committee’s agenda includes a review and discussion of a new report showing PhotoSafe’s mounting red ink and suggesting beneficial changes in driver behavior that may have resulted from the installation of the cameras is leveling off.