Our recently completed four-part series on trade and transportation underscored the benefits of bulk commodity exports to our state. Among them:

• Continued export growth in bulk commodities will boost job creation and investment
• Expanded facilities for coal will benefit other key export sectors, including agriculture
• The expansion will spur additional private sector spending on rail infrastructure

In the next six weeks, the state ecology department will be holding a number of meetings to gather public comment on the Millennium Bulk Terminals Longview proposal. The meetings are to help the deparment assess “what impacts to analyze in an environmental impact statement (EIS).”  This is a good opportunity to make your voice heard. (Hearings on the Gateway Pacific Terminal proposed for Cherry Point were held earlier this summer.)

The state has decided to conduct an unprecedented global environmental impact assessment. The feds are taking a more measured approach.

Washington state’s decision to include greenhouse gas emissions and train traffic concerns in the review of a proposed coal terminal near the Canadian border has caused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a separate, federal review of a coal export dock in southwest Washington.

…Lauri Hennessey, spokeswoman for the Alliance for Northwest Jobs & Exports, praised the corps’ move.

“Business, labor and trade leaders have expressed concern over Ecology’s decision. Now the federal government has joined those ranks,” she said. “Completing these projects without delay must remain a priority.”

It’s a messy and still unresolved process.

On Washington state’s other possible coal-export dock, proposed for the shore of Puget Sound north of Bellingham, Wash., the corps currently is engaged in a joint review with the state of Washington and Whatcom County. In that review, Washington Department of Ecology will undertake a more broadly focused review than that planned by the federal agency for the project, called the Gateway Pacific Terminal.

The latest notice in the Federal Register makes no mention of that relationship changing – although there have been rumors that the Army Corps may part ways with the state on that review, as it did Friday for the Longview project.

Meanwhile, jobs and investment are at risk.

 Herb Krohn, a lobbyist with the United Transportation Union, said the scope of the Department of Ecology’s environmental review was “way out on a limb.”

“The corps doesn’t want to be attached to that, to no one’s surprise,” he went on. “We have only been asking for a fair review, a fair time frame, and a fair sense of urgency so we can create these jobs and help our economy.”

Sounds right. Erik Smith has more here.