Politics podcast: Timber towns, Trump and the skinny on Seattle's new budget, on The Overcast - The Seattle Times

What's next in the push for a Washington state carbon tax? What would it take to bring back timber jobs in a county where Donald Trump did well? What do you need to know about Seattle's new budget? Thankfully, we serve up some answers.

Donald Trump campaigned on the promise that he’d bring back family-wage jobs like those at a Skamania County timber town’s shuttered veneer mill.

What would it take for the mill to reopen in an area where many people voted for Trump? In Episode 12, we explore that question with Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton.

“What I found was that there was some common ground that has been forged” between a vice president of the company that owns the mill and a conservation biologist who watchdogs federal timber harvests, Bernton says at 9:15. “Both wanted to see this mill reopened.”

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He adds, “They both thought that really it could be done without gutting the regulations that protect the spotted owl and other forest creatures and that really a big issue is funding for the Forest Service.”

Bernton also updates us on the prospects of Washington taxing carbon now that Initiative 732 has been defeated.

An alliance of environmental organizations, labor unions and social-justice groups plans to bring its own carbon-tax proposal to the Legislature next year.

“They hope to get a bill introduced and see about getting passage, although that’s going to be a tough struggle in the next session,” Bernton says at 3:10.

“The Republicans will be still in control of the Senate. And also, there are going to be a whole bunch of other pressing issues … and it’s unclear whether they’ll be much appetite for taking up any new proposal.”

At 16:30, City Hall reporter Daniel Beekman tells assistant digital editor Gina Cole five things everyone should know about the new two-year budget adopted by the City Council on Monday.

Topping his list: “This budget includes more money for cops,” Beekman says at 17:10. Mayor Ed Murray proposed $13 million to grow the city’s police force by 72 officers in 2017 and 2018.

Some activists concerned about police brutality and militarization called for the money to be spent instead on social services.

“But the council went ahead and approved that part of the mayor’s budget, as he wanted,” Beekman says.

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Send us your feedback and your nominations for next week’s winner and loser in local politics. Leave a comment on this post, tweet at us (@DBeekman and @Gina_Cole_), email us (seattletimesovercast@gmail.com) or drop us a voicemail at 206-464-8778.