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State Bids to Boeing Due Tuesday

Elaine Thompson
/
Associated Press
File - In this Nov. 11, 2013 file photo Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, center, adjusts his glasses as he prepares to sign legislation in Seattle to help keep production of Boeing's new 777X in Washington.

Tuesday is the deadline is for states to submit their bids to Boeing in hopes of winning the 777X assembly line.

Washington is competing with more than a dozen other locations to build the next generation wide-body airliner. The competitors include Utah, California, Missouri and Alabama.  

Washington’s aerospace director Alex Pietsch believes Washington still has a “leg up” on other states despite the vote last month by unionized machinists to reject a new labor contract.

“We believe that the easiest path and the path with the least risk for the company and its customers is to build this plane right here in Washington state, and we intend to make that case,” Pietsch said.

Details of what Boeing’s looking for leaked out last week. Some of the items on the company’s wish list include: significant tax incentives, subsidies to build the assembly line and access to long runways, rail lines and seaports.

The Washington Legislature has already approved nearly $9 billion in tax breaks plus other incentives designed to keep 777 production in the Northwest.

Boeing is expected to announce a decision early next year.

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy as well as the Washington State legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia." Prior to joining the Northwest News Network, Austin worked as a television reporter in Seattle, Portland and Boise. Austin is a graduate of Garfield High School in Seattle and Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut. Austin’s reporting has been recognized with awards from the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors, Public Radio News Directors Incorporated and the Society of Professional Journalists.