Washington state Gov. Inslee talks about Boeing 787, fall COVID-19 safety, elections
Gov. Jay Inslee talked Thursday about Boeing’s decision to move 787 production out of Washington state, COVID-19 safety precautions as the seasons change, and the president’s election threats.
“The Boeing Company never asked or suggested to the state of Washington anything that we could do to assure continued production of this airplane,” Inslee said during a virtual press conference. “Simply put, we did everything we could to keep this production here.”
Boeing has confirmed reports that it will move all 787 Dreamliner production to South Carolina next year.
The company has said it “remains committed to Puget Sound with their other assembly lines,” the governor said, but “has not even left on the table an option to restart the 787 line in Washington when this market rebounds.”
Inslee indicated that was unacceptable. “When this market comes back, so should these jobs. We will do everything in our power towards that end.”
He also said it’s time for “a hard look for the more than $100 million in tax advantages that are today enjoyed annually by the Boeing Company.”
Commerce Director Lisa Brown joined the governor on the call. She said Washington has been at “the forefront of the global aerospace industry for 100 years, and ultimately we don’t see that changing ... because we have such a strong industry statewide.”
Change of season for COVID-19
The governor also spoke about the state’s COVID-19 response going into the fall.
After a couple months of a decline in cases, there’s been a plateau and now an uptick.
“We cannot let this virus take off,” he said. “We’re making real progress, but the long-term outlook has to be considered uncertain.”
He said people need to keep taking precautions such as wearing masks and social distancing, and that he thinks the state has done a good job of doing that in communal spaces, such as while shopping.
It’s also important to do those things when visiting the homes of friends and relatives, he said.
“As fall comes, we’ve got to up our game,” with more activities happening indoors, and not let “fatigue endanger us,” Inslee said.
He also spoke about the President Trump’s threats to the upcoming elections.
“His threats to get rid of ballots and his refusal to commit to honoring the outcome of the election” are “fundamentally un-American,” Inslee said.
Washington state is threatened, he said, because it has a mail-in-voting system and law that allows ballots to be counted after election day.
He said the president is “not going to get away with stopping these votes from being counted and depriving Washingtonians the right to vote,” and that public officials need to call on the president to stop.
“Otherwise we’re going to lose hundreds of thousands of votes that he is going to try to stop being counted,” Inslee said.
He’s one of a dozen governors who put out a statement this week that said in part: “Any efforts to throw out ballots or refuse a peaceful transfer of power are nothing less than an assault on American democracy. There is absolutely no excuse for promoting the intimidation or harassment of voters.”
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 5:21 PM.
