On March 22, The Stranger posted leaked audio of a talk Port of Seattle commissioner Bill Bryant had given three days earlier at an Evergreen Republican Women's Club meeting in Everett. When one audience member asked Bryant about the port's controversial decision to host Shell's Arctic drilling fleet in Seattle, he mocked Seattleites who've protested the port's secretive dealings on this issue and made light of the potential environmental impacts of Arctic drilling.

Bryant, a Republican, described his attitude toward hosting the fleet as "Great, go ahead."

The port has been criticized for holding one lone January 13 meeting to gather public input before the Shell deal was sealed—a meeting held with minimal public notice—but Bryant talked about how, technically, the port didn't even need to hold any public meeting for the lease decision.

"Having a public hearing in Seattle is always interesting," Bryant cracked. He then dismissed the concerns of locals and environmental activists who showed up to the port's public meetings before and after the Shell decision, and he wrote off the "five out of five dead polar bears" environmental hypocrisy ranking he received from The Stranger earlier this month. "Having a public hearing in Seattle about Arctic drilling is how you get—how you are able to earn five dead polar bears," Bryant said.

He also disclosed when Shell's first Arctic drilling rig will arrive in Seattle, something that lawyers for the port and Foss Maritime, the company leasing the space for Shell's Arctic drilling fleet, would not even reveal in a King County courtroom during a recent hearing grown out of a legal challenge to the Shell deal.

"The first drilling rig will arrive in early April, and we've been threatened with a flotilla of kayaks to block it," Bryant told the Republicans, many of whom burst out in laughter. "So we'll see what happens." It was all a bit reminiscent of former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's leaked "47 percent" remarks, and Bryant himself seemed familiar with Romney, mentioning him on the recording.

When one audience member asked Bryant if any provision was being made at the terminal to prevent a possible spill, he blamed the media and Mayor Ed Murray for leading people to believe that oil tankers were coming into the port. Not a single publication—or Mayor Murray—had ever made such a statement. Bryant declined to answer questions about his recorded comments, but clarified to The Stranger he had mistakenly singled out Mayor Murray—it was statements from city council member Mike O'Brien, Bryant said, that had "confused some people who have talked with me about this issue." (To our knowledge, O'Brien has never said that oil tankers would be arriving at the port.)

Bryant is up for reelection to the port commission this year. He's also said that he has ambitions—maybe—to be governor.

But how well will a Bryant run go in King County with weakened environmental credibility? "I don't think you win elections by mocking your constituency," Jesse Piedfort, executive committee chair of the Sierra Club's Seattle chapter, said. "Even Republicans and suburbanites care about the environment, and they don't want public officials who keep them in the dark about controversial and important decisions."

Washington Conservation Voters, one of the most politically influential environmental groups in the state, denounced Bryant and his recorded commentary as "out of touch" with "core Washingtonian values." Acknowledging that the group endorsed Bryant the last time he ran for port commissioner, Washington Conservation Voters president Shannon Murphy also said that leaks or spills from Shell's Arctic drilling fleet could put Puget Sound at real risk, and that supporting Arctic drilling contradicts the state's other efforts to battle climate change.

"If Commissioner Bryant is considering a run for governor, he should know that Washingtonians won't accept putting the oil industry's reckless pursuit of short-term profits ahead of our long-term economic and environmental health," Murphy said in a statement.

In the past, Bryant has campaigned on a platform of protecting Puget Sound. But exploiting the Arctic for fossil fuels will affect Puget Sound, said Chris Wilke, executive director of the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. If opening up any of the Arctic significantly contributes to global warming—and recent research published in Nature suggests it will—the effects, including ocean acidification, could destroy the very foundations of the Puget Sound food chain, he said.

"The waters of the Eastern North Pacific have some of the most acidic waters on the planet," Wilke added. "There are really three elements to this issue: One is public accountability, another is the local water impacts, whether it's from oil spills or industrial activity, and the third is climate impacts. You can't ignore that."