Tom Banse
Regional CorrespondentCorrespondent Tom Banse is an Olympia-based reporter with more than three decades of experience covering Washington and Oregon state government, public policy, business and breaking news stories. Most of his career was spent with public radio's Northwest News Network, but now in semi-retirement his work is appearing on other outlets.
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Thousands of people said goodbye to Boeing's final 747 airplane
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Numerous Democrats in the Washington Legislature are backing a new proposal to make voting in elections compulsory. Citizens are required by law to cast ballots in about 25 counties, but in no other U.S. states. Republicans in Olympia described the idea as "un-American."
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Washington state lawmakers in Olympia are debating a suite of possible new responses to surging traffic fatalities. Those include authorizing photo radar in highway work zones, prohibiting right turns at many red lights, and lowering the breathalyzer limit to convict for drunk driving. Some of these ideas have corollaries in Oregon, where the legislative machinery is getting revved up too.
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Everywhere they look, Pacific Northwest scientists find teeny-tiny plastic pollution. Broken down particles are in our water, falling out of the air, in salmon, shellfish and in our own bodies. Scientists, environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers in Olympia and Salem have seen enough to make them seek more regulations.
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Washington Gov. Jay Inslee emphasized housing construction and homelessness response during his 2023 State of the State address on Tuesday. The issue is a bipartisan priority for the state legislature, but approaches differ among the lawmakers who convened in Olympia this week.
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Washington state voters and lawmakers appear to be in close alignment on their top priorities for the incoming Washington Legislature. The 2023 session gavels to order at noon on Monday, Jan. 9.
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The stewards of Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Oregon's tallest lighthouse, are sprucing up the popular landmark on Oregon's central coast for its sesquicentennial in 2023.
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The states of Washington and Oregon have submitted a joint bid to the U.S. Department of Energy to get a share of $8 billion that Congress set aside to launch "Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs" around the nation. But good luck trying to learn what exactly the bi-state bid entails, other than the safe presumption that at least one industrial hydrogen production facility would be subsidized.
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The federal government has commissioned Oregon State University to look into the possible impacts of offshore wind farms on marine wildlife. In the first year of this four-year project, the researchers spotted sizable numbers of seabirds and whales in areas that could one day host floating wind farms.
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Prospective kelp growers who want to join the handful of existing commercial seaweed farms in the Pacific Northwest are having to contend with a lengthy permitting process. It's gotten contentious in a few cases, but even so, at least a couple of new seaweed farms stand on the cusp of approval. Their harvests could be sold for human food, animal feed or fertilizer.