Bellingham Comments from Digital Recorder - EISs for the Proposed ...

GATEWAY PACIFIC TERMINAL EIS SCOPING HEARING VOL. I
COURT REPORTER: GWEN BRASS PROCEEDING DATE: October 27, 2012
Page 30
to the U.S. of exporting coal to China.
The U.S. Government, the taxpayers, we subsidize coal
at $1 a ton. And this coal then will be sold cheaply in China,
who is our major competitor in the global marketplace. So when
you talk about jobs and the financial situation of taxpayers,
this is an idea that needs to be scoped and looked at on a much
broader level than even just our own area.
Providing China with cheap coal in the type of
marketplace that we're in today, which is very unstable, we owe
a lot of money to China, why would we even consider this
project? It's beyond me.
And so I ask the environmental impact study to please
look at the broader even national impact of subsidizing this
coal and providing it to our major global competitor that would
cost businesses and jobs all across this country, not just to
the northwest.
Thank you.
MS. HULL: Next speaker, please.
THE SPEAKER: My name is Jean Melious. I live in
Bellingham.
"Impact" is another word for cost and what people may
not notice that the environmental impact assessment process is
built on the assumption that certain level of costs will be
imposed on the public. Now, what's to decide that an impact is
less than significant? There is no requirement to reduce that