Jay Inslee: “this truly is a great day for the House where common sense and bipartisan thirst for progress is really going to trump…”

“this truly is a great day for the House where common sense and bipartisan thirst for progress is really going to trump ideology. I want to tell my colleagues why I think it is such a great day. I spent 4 days last summer eyeballing the need for this bill by kayak in my district. I spent 4 days in a kayak going all across the waterways in my district. I want to tell my colleagues, I came away impressed with one thing: it is about time that the U.S. Congress makes this commitment. Let me tell my colleagues about a couple of things I saw. I went up the Sammamish River, stopped at the soccer fields where I saw hundred of kids playing soccer with hundreds of kids literally on the sidelines who did not have fields to play on. We need to build new soccer fields. Not one of those kids playing soccer was stealing hubcaps. This is a juvenile crime issue as well. I kept going up the Sammamish River, got to where Little Bear Creek and Big Bear Creek flow in. I talked to some residents there who told me, we have to buy these conservation easements to protect the headlands so that we can prevent the extension of salmon runs in Bear Creek. I kept paddling down Lake Washington with a guy named Bill Nye. My colleagues may have heard of Bill Nye, the science guy, who told all of the people on our kayak tour about the importance of water quality and wetlands and preserving wetlands for salmon.”