Port of Moses Lake seeks narrow debt-capacity increase for rail project

The Senate Local Government Committee heard substitute Senate Bill 6,132 on Tuesday, a measure limited to selected inland port districts that would allow a modest increase in debt capacity to complete infrastructure projects.

Elizabeth Wren, staff to the committee, said the bill would permit a port district that has created a tax-increment financing area and meets specified assessed-value thresholds to contract additional indebtedness or issue general-obligation bonds up to an extra 0.25% of the value of taxable property in the district without voter approval, provided the borrowing is used for financing public improvements.

Senator Judy Warnec (13th Legislative District) told the committee the bill applies to a single port, the Port of Moses Lake, which meets the criteria and seeks to close a financing gap on a long-standing rail project.

Dan Roach, executive director of the Port of Moses Lake, said the port has secured $23,000,000 of state funding and $10,000,000 of federal funding and is at 100% design with right-of-way secured. "We are at a point now where we have 100% design. We have secured all the right of way. We are going out to bid here, next month," Roach said, adding that inflation has driven up costs and the port needs the additional borrowing capacity to complete the project.

Brent Mayo of the Grant County Economic Development Council said the rail and power investments supported by the bill are critical to attracting and retaining advanced manufacturing and clean-energy employers in Grant County.

Committee members asked staff about how many port districts would be affected and who would bear the risk if a tax-increment financing area underperforms; staff and the sponsor said the bill was crafted as a single-port carve-out and that risk allocation was not specified in the bill text.

The committee closed the public hearing and invited sponsors and staff to circulate amendments before executive consideration.