And they're off

Governor Gregoire delivered her State of the State address yesterday to a joint session of the state House and Senate. You can read her speech here (along with the Republican response).  Also, take a look at this session overview in The Seattle Times (here) that does a nice job reviewing the lay of the land and the session priorities. The conventional wisdom is that everything is on the table, which means that we are guarding those things near and dear to us (such as keeping the trade-in allowance in place; protecting the Recreation Resource Account and continuing to think about what a sales-tax hike would mean to member businesses (and boaters)).

NMTA’s agenda is not one of defense alone. Rather, there’s some optimism from the Government Affairs shop that a bill to make it easier for boatyards to install water treatment system as well as loosening up the Pilotage requirements are on a nice trajectory for success in 2012. Also, Sen. Nick Harper, a freshman Democrat from Everett, has collaborated with us to introduce a Senate version of the Marine Tourism Bill, which makes it easier for out-of-state entity-owned vessels to visit Washington state.

Check back here regularly for legislative updates. Things happen very slow in Olympia, that is until they happen very fast. Know that we will have a presence each day (and night) in Olympia on your behalf.

-Peter (peter at nmta.net)