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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

2012 Gael Tarleton Will Direct Port Staff to Cooperate With Mayor McGinn on Coal Train Study

Posted by Eli Sanders on Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 11:46 AM

Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton, currently embroiled in a spat over her environmental record in the 36th District legislative race, writes to say she's completely on board with Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's call for a coal train study:

At today’s Commission meeting, I’ll direct Port staff to share with the Seattle Department of Transportation all the information we have to analyze coal train impacts as the Mayor has asked. As I stated last week, I'm against coal trains that crisscross our state, endangering our communities and preventing us from enjoying our public parks, waterfront, and bike and walking paths. I have stated publicly for months that I am opposed to using public money to support a fossil fuel economy—all our energy infrastructure investments should be in clean energy. Cities across the state need to know we’re pulling together to protect our communities against the environmental impacts of long coal trains. I look forward to continuing my work with Climate Solutions and others to ensure we assess the impact of these trains state-wide.

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Besides the dozen other obvious downsides to streamlining China's access to our cheap coal by parading it across our country, there's also this:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/vi…

Posted by Dougsf on September 25, 2012 at 12:07 PM

But if we don't sell off US coal reserves to China, how will they destroy our economy and make us energy dependent again?

(caveat, I have owned and currently own energy funds, coal firms, and coal IPOs and options)

Posted by Will in Seattle

on September 25, 2012 at 12:30 PM

Nice job, Gael. I appreciate it when elected officials work together to solve problems.

Posted by SeaMariner1 on September 25, 2012 at 12:34 PM

I'm glad Gael finally followed Noel's lead and came around on this one!

Posted by opengov on September 25, 2012 at 1:26 PM

@1 That's actually a pretty compelling argument FOR coal exports. The Powder River Basin coal that would be exported has very low sulfur content and if it replaced the Chinese and Mongolian coal being used currently, it would improve air quality quite a lot.

Posted by Jk on September 25, 2012 at 6:38 PM

Nothing says "I have good political judgement" quite like allying oneself with Mike McGinn

Posted by c'mon girlfriend on September 26, 2012 at 12:25 AM