U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) talks with Duwamish River stakeholders about flooding blamed on climate change
Climate resilience in an area that’s already seen flooding was the focus of a meeting with Washington’s senior U.S. Senator.
People in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood tell Democratic Senator Patty Murray they’ve already seen their homes flooded when king tides roll in to the Duwamish River – tides they say are growing more frequent with climate change. They also say that flooding happens because the drainage is inadequate, with no investment in upgrades for many years.
Seattle Public Utilities says it needs to add sewer pipes and a pump station, and Murray says she’ll work to secure $3 million from the feds to help.
Northwest Newsradio asked Murray how that funding might be affected by a default or the spending cuts Republicans have called for to raise the debt ceiling. “What the Republicans are doing right now is literally holding our economy hostage, and everything like this that we need to do to invest to make our communities strong hostage, and saying that they’re not going to raise the debt ceiling unless they get really conservative cuts,” Murray says, “That’s like saying ‘do you want door number one or door number two?’ They’re both really bad.”
Murray says they need to explore every avenue to reach a debt limit agreement and that she’s willing to work across the aisle on federal spending, something she says they always do because she says they need to fund the federal government, and the budget needs to come by bi-partisan agreement.