OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Washington state Senate is considering a bill outlined by Gov. Jay Inslee that would make polluters pay – and use the money to invest in clean jobs and keeping natural resources resilient.

Senate Bill 6203 would tax carbon polluters, with the funds used to speed up the state's transition to clean energy, and to invest in projects to manage water and forest resources.

Russ Vaagen, CEO of Vaagen Timbers in Colville, says that investment is key. He thinks the legislation could turn restoration projects, like clearing brush and other wildfire fuels, into boons for rural communities.

"What we'll really create is an economic engine that is able to take the byproduct of all this effort that needs to be done, and it will pay for itself eventually,” he says. “But we need to get the kind of investments that they're talking about with this legislation to get that started."

Vaagen says restoration is necessary to improve forest health and reduce the severity of wildfires.

Cap-and-trade programs have been floated by the governor, legislature and ballot initiative in recent years, but haven't succeeded. During last year's session, four carbon tax bills were proposed – and none made it out of committee.

On the Yakima City Council, Councilwoman Carmen Mendez says the need to pass a bill to fight climate change has become painfully apparent. She says the wildfire smoke made it hard to breathe in Yakima last summer – the first time in her life she remembers it being that bad.

She adds the reduced snowpack from warmer winters also threatens people's way of life.

"That's going to create a difficult time not only for our farmers, but for our economy,” she says. “This is an ag-based economy and every community member depends very heavily on making sure that we have enough water for our crops, because that's how everybody survives here."

Doug Reed is the fifth generation president and owner of Green Diamond Resource Company, a forest products business in western Washington. He's convinced this legislation could spur the timber industry to work on solutions to the warming climate.

"Really, if there's incentive for landowners to store more carbon on the landscape, they'll figure out ways to do that, and you see that happening,” says Reed. “People will at some point make the calculations – is the carbon that's stored in these trees more valuable as sequestered carbon, or is it more valuable as a wood product?"


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The Trump administration's long-term plan for artificial intelligence could have far-reaching environmental impacts across the country.

His strategy calls for the removal of land use rules considered prohibitive to the construction of AI data centers. Last year, then Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Microsoft would invest $1 billion to establish a new AI data center in Laporte to generate cloud computing infrastructure.

Ben Murray, senior researcher for the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said fossil fuel plants are already being reopened to help meet high energy demands.

"We just need to be aware that anything that prolongs our reliance on fossil fuel is going to increase the problems that we're seeing from the climate crisis," Murray explained.

Murray argued high-tech progress should not come at the expense of increased household energy prices. Residents' support is low due to concerns about increased traffic and noise near the centers. The Trump administration said environmental and permitting regulations will only slow America's dominance in the AI field.

A report last year found emissions from data centers owned by Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft were more than seven times higher than officially reported. Computer servers using AI require far more energy than those without. A ChatGPT query, for example, can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard Google search.

"These companies can seem as if they're decreasing their emissions and meeting net-zero goals but in reality, the emissions are amping up faster than ever for these companies," Murray pointed out.

Murray noted the push for more data centers is already leading Big Tech companies to backtrack on their climate goals. It is possible to power AI services with renewable energy sources, he added, but doing so requires political will.

As of June 2025, a 1,200-acre corn and soybean field just outside of New Carlisle has turned into eight Amazon-led AI energy centers. The tech giant plans to construct a total of 30 at the site.


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After one year, Washington's first comprehensive bee survey has documented 15 species that have never been collected in the state before.

The project is cataloguing native bees, which includes nearly all species in the state, but excludes honeybees.

Karla Salp is a communications consultant with the Washington State Department of Agriculture's Washington Bee Atlas program, which conducted the survey.

She said the data will serve as a baseline to track bee populations.

"The reason why this is happening in the first place is to answer the question, how are pollinators doing in Washington state?" said Salp. "And the answer is we don't know, because we've never actually looked at even what bees we have throughout the state."

Salp said the project also involves compiling a list of plants that each bee species pollinates so residents can make their yards more attractive to these beneficial insects.

As honeybee numbers continue to decline rapidly, Salp explained that native pollinators may become more important to Washington's agriculture.

"Knowing what native pollinators we have and how we can support them is really a sustainability issue" said Salp, "to make sure that whether we have honeybees here or not, there are options for pollination."

Volunteers collected over 17,000 bees on more than 600 different host plants.

Salp said the process of identifying them is slow because each one must be viewed under a microscope, and there is still considerable work to be done.

"We're expecting to find a lot more species" said Salp, "that are either rare or even new to the state. "

If people are interested in volunteering, an online application for the Bee Atlas program is available on the Washington State Department of Agriculture website.




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The Trump administration wants to overturn a conservation rule that had garnered more public comment than any in U.S. history up until that time.

Commonly known as the Roadless Rule, the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulation prohibits road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvesting on nearly 60 million acres of national forest land.

Sarah McMillan - the senior attorney and director of the Wildlands & Wildlife Program at the Western Environmental Law Center - said before it was adopted in 2001, 1.5 million people submitted comments, with the vast majority in support of the rule.

"This was a rule that was carefully, thoughtfully developed," said McMillan. "There was a long process of inventorying these roadless areas and identifying these remote, often mature and old-growth trees. This didn't happen overnight."

A rollback of the rule would allow more logging and drilling on federal lands, which McMillan said would worsen climate change, harm wildlife & vital ecosystems, jeopardize water quality, and negatively affect recreational opportunities.

The Bush administration attempted to repeal the Roadless Rule in 2005, but lost in the courts.

In announcing the proposed rollback, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claimed more logging would improve forest management, which would in turn decrease forest fires.

But McMillan said that argument is disputed in a 2020 Wilderness Society study that found just the opposite.

"The truth is, un-roaded areas burn at a significantly lower rate than areas with roads," said McMillan. "So, fires start near roads."

McMillan said it doesn't make sense to allow private developers to log more trees when the planet is undergoing a biodiversity and climate crisis - especially because old-growth trees create a buffer against climate change.

Forests cover almost 30% of New Mexico's land area.




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