In The News

OLYMPIA, Wash. – The Washington state Senate passed a bill targeting political spending by corporations with significant foreign ownership on Wednesday along party lines. Senate Bill 5284 was introduced by Sen. Joe Nguyen, D-White Center, and sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, among others.

It’s Wednesday. It’s sunny and chilly on the grounds of the state Capitol. Inside legislative buildings, the mood is heating up as the deadline to get policy bills out of committee is two days away.

OLYMPIA – Lawmakers are hoping to incentivize the creation of cleaner fuels for airplanes. A bill, sponsored by Spokane Democratic Sen. Andy Billig, would give tax incentives to manufacture and purchase alternative jet fuel, which are biofuels with a lower carbon intensity than conventional jet fuels. They are often made from sustainable feedstock, such as corn or agricultural residues, and can ...

OLYMPIA – A bipartisan effort to rid the Spokane River of harmful chemicals is the latest step in the decadeslong quest to clean Washington’s waterways. Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, D-Spokane, the bill would require the Department of Ecology to petition the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reassess its regulations on PCBs, with the hopes that the agency would ...

OLYMPIA — It’s the centerpiece of Gov. Jay Inslee’s 2023-25 budget proposal: a plan to borrow $4 billion to fund an aggressive push to build affordable housing and shelters in Washington. A few weeks into the 2023 legislative session, it’s not clear whether Inslee’s proposal will get the necessary support from lawmakers to pass. In its current form, the unprecedented effort ...

If you were to ask elementary school children what law they would like to see lawmakers pass this legislative session, it would probably be the so-called recess bill. The proposal in Washington State would require elementary schools to give students a minimum of 45 minutes of recess when the school day is longer than five hours or 30 minutes when the ...

OLYMPIA — When the Washington Legislature's 2023 session convenes on Monday, the biggest challenge for lawmakers won't be a specific bill package but whether Republicans and Democrats can bridge their ideological divide to work together. A Thursday legislative preview sponsored by the Washington State Association of Broadcasters and the Allied Daily Newspapers of Washington revealed how much Democrats and Republicans disagree ...

The East Central Neighborhood in Spokane could see more changes along the I-90 corridor. The Washington State legislature passed Senate Bill 5853, which would allow the Washington Dept. of Transportation to lease state property near Interstate 90 and the north Spokane corridor back to the community. Thomas Speight's house used to be located near East 3rd Avenue and South Myrtle Street. "They were ...

A proposal allowing the Department of Transportation to lease state property near Interstate 90 and the North Spokane Corridor back to the community won final approval from the Legislature Wednesday. The proposal, sponsored by Spokane Democrat Sen. Andy Billig, would allow the Department of Transportation to lease surplus land to the Department of Commerce or a community-based nonprofit organization, which can ...

When construction began on Interstate 90 in the late 1950s, hundreds of homes were demolished to make way for the highway. The East Central neighborhood, home mostly to immigrant and Black residents, was split in half. And as the North Spokane Corridor makes its way through the city, a number of other homes and businesses have been removed. Now, years later, much ...