If you believe the complacent liberal media in Seattle, the Democrats just wrapped up a banner session in Olympia. Domestic partnerships, health care, and the environment: check, check, and check, according to April 23's P-I banner advertorial headline. Hmmm...
Training-wheels domestic partnerships? You'd think that with a 63 percent majority in the house and 65 percent majority in the senate, the Democrats could have gotten around to some of the 413 basic rights they actually left outâlike access to a partner's insurance or pension.
Health care? I will give them a sincere mazel tov on that. They found funding ($56.9 million) to ensure coverage for 35,000 low-income kids. That's certainly more than I can say for the family-leave bill they "passed"... without funding it.
As for seizing Al Gore's 2007 Academy Awardâwinning moment and doing something real about the environment? This is the supermajority's biggest hoax this session. Under the guise of a "Strategic Framework for Action," the Democrats held a press conference and passed a law calling to convene a panel to come up with a way to limit emissions.
Okay, I'm being a little unfair. They did pass an emissions cap governing power plants that enter into new contracts with utilities. I'm not sure how much CO2 this limited rule will actually capture, though, given that the cap doesn't govern existing contracts. Nor am I sure how relevant reining in utility emissions is in Washington State. According to a February report from the state's Department of Community, Trade & Economic Development, emissions from utilities make up just 16 percent of the 88.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gases, including CO2, our state produces annually. The real culprit, according to the report, is "transportation" (cars)âwhich makes up 45 percent of our emissions.
"It's a little embarrassing," one of the report's authors told me. "Our overall emissions are lower than most states, but we're on the high end for car emissions."
True: According to the most recent data from the federal Energy Information Administration, 52.4 percent of the Evergreen state's CO2 emissions come from transportation, making us one of the top five offenders, along with California (59.4 percent). Nationwide, the average is 32.7 percent.
On this score, the supermajority Democrats blew it. They not only failed to put a check on car dependency, they actually accelerated the problem. Rather than putting guidelines on the $7 billion RTID roads package they authorizedâlike demanding the projects assess transit alternatives (a bill that died in the house)âthey officially made transit dependent on building roads, by linking RTID to light rail under one ballot title. Meanwhile, they approved another $7.5 billion roads package, including $915 million for work on the Alaskan Way Viaduct that may lock in a highway option there. (See page 13.)
When the task force on emissions finally comes back next year with recommendations on how to lower CO2 their first suggestion should be aimed at the Democrats: less hot air, more action. 
