[applause] gov. Inslee for the washington huskies who gave us an incredible season, that was an amazing season. [applause] mr. President , madam speaker, mr. Chief justice, distinguished injustices of the court, members of the legislature, tribal leaders, members of the consular corps and my fellow washingtonians, i come to you as a governor, as a granddad, and as a washingtonian, and i want to start by thanking you and your families for their contribution to our mutual efforts. My staff and their families also deserve credit as well, particular, family, and a very special person to me. I loved seeing the Childcare Center she inspired us to build for our capital families, and that is among many causes she has advocated for us first spouse. [applause] it is not in the script, but i want to share a secret with you. I love you trudy, and i am not alone. [laughter] [applause] so lets cut to the chase, i am happy to report that we have been, we are, and we will always be the strongest state in the nation. In fact, the state of our state is stronger than ever. For over a decade, we have advanced nationleading policies to support working families and grown our economy and have acted boldly to protect our states iconic places, advanced equity, built more houses, fought for a womans right to choose, and we have ushered in a clean energy economy. [applause] it is fair to say that in an era of tremendous change, washington has emerged as a beacon of progress for this nation, and this year we will make sure that light shines even brighter. This is my 11th time i have had the honor to address this chamber, and i have a bigger audience every year. There are one million more washingtonians to date him when i took office because washington is the place to be. And i welcome our new washingtonians who have seen the genius and the promise of our great state. The minimum wage was nine dollars in 2013 and today it is over 16 dollars in wages over all have grown by 39 , double, double the National Rate in our gdp has grown 45 from 520 billion in 2013 to 760 billion today. And we should be proud of this, we are among the very few states that rank is both a top state for his ms. And workers. For business and workers. We have done some great work. [applause] now, as we contemplate this next year and the work ahead, i think back to my dad, frank who coached to t. He told runners to imagine a finish line 10 yards beyond the tape. He wanted to make sure his runners would not let up before the race was over. My dad always said, and the sticks with me, fellas, run through the tape. We are going to run through the tape this year and just as i know you will give this state your best work, i will give it mine. This is not a Farewell Speech on these are not famous last words and i am not writing into the sunset. Winston churchill said this is not time for reason comfort, it is time ease and comfort, it is time to dare and endure, so we will not relent to our greatest challenges, go backwards. This is both the evergreen state and the ever forward state, and we should be proud of that. [applause] we are Going Forward on our evergreen agenda. We know that Climate Change is hurting us now, today, but climate collapse does not have to be our inevitable future. This legislature put us on a clear and necessary path to sl ash Greenhouse Gases by 95 by 2050. Any delay would be a betrayal of our childrens future. We are now on the razors edge between promise and peril. We know this was historic floods gutted homes that have stood for generations or when wildfires forced evacuations of entire towns like last year in mold and before that. And molden before that. And the need for actions daily for washingtonians living with pollution. There are neighborhoods today in our state were people are dying two and a half years younger on average because of pollution. This pollution is harmful to the lives of washingtonians. In many communities, shoreline, south king county, there are neighborhoods in these communities where people are forced to live sicker and die younger because of this pollution. We have made a solemn oath to our children and their children, and in that noble mission, we will neither flag nor fail. We will go on to give them the grandest of blessings, a healthy washington. We will not with the defeat is to live in the great twilight of pessimism. We will stay the course and we will win. [applause] thanks to this legislators Budget Priorities and the climate commitment back, we can help more people like elyse garcia. Her home was one of 32 and ya, county that had rooftop Solar Installed thanks to Estate Program specifically geared towards farmworkers. Her home now produces 100 of its energy from her roof and her familys energy bills r0 and, it would not have been possible without this legislation. She and her daughter jasmine are here today. Thank you for inspiring. Many people will follow in your footsteps. Thank you for what you are doing. [applause] you will hear many more stories this year like this and beyond about how our Climate Policies are making life better for washington families. The climate commitment back has act is letting us reduce pollution and funding good paying jobs, electric school buses, free rides for youth in the county, systems and school so students can breathe when there are wildfire smoke outside in public charges for electric vehicles. I think it is important to note that this money come right back to washington families. It is not going to houston or the other oil hubs with the oil industrys record 2 billion in profit from 2022. And now we have more we can give back to our communities. I am proposing a 200 utility bill credit for one out of every three households in washington, nearly 2 million low income and moderate income washingtonians. We will help thousands of families to install heat pumps to cut emissions and energy bills. This makes it easier to invest in infrastructure including hybrid and electric and safer bicycle and pedestrian routes, Sustainable Aviation fuels, ev battery manufacturing, electric buses in ferndale we are attracting and creating thousands of good jobs and clean energy and clean technology, and we are training the folks who work at those places for jobs in this new clean energy economy. I have got to tell you that these jobs are coming on so quickly. The new Pacific Northwest hydrogen hub could create a thousand jobs alone for the production and distribution of Green Hydrogen to reduce pollution. Now here is Something Else about the fossil fuel industry, for decades we have been subjected to the roller coaster of gas prices. We would do something about Price Transparency in Washington State the session. The oil and gas industrys books are closed to the public. It is time for transparency and accountability and i look forward to that. [applause] i believe [applause] i believe this legislature is capable of even more extraordinary achievements on top of these, because i have seen it happen every year that i have been here. Dont forget 2018, the end of the mcclary sakai when we moved heaven and earth to fulfill our paramount duty of funding education in the state of washington. Now i hope you will join me by increasing pay for 32,000 para educators by three dollars an hour and raising the kaplan on special Education Funding and in creating incentives for teachers to serve students. [applause] and, once students have graduated, they now have more pathways to success than ever. The legislature has created the most general College Financial aid program in the country. [applause] but, but it is not the only pathway to success, which is why we greatly increased support for apprenticeships. One person in auburn was going to be an engineer but then he was in a traumatic car accident followed by really high medical bills and had to leave college. Fortunately he got connected to computing in a preapprenticeship program which is this legislature has designed to support the connect washington grant. Now he is a developer in a Mental Health abend he is here today. You have a bright future, brian. Thank you for allowing us to tell your story. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] this legislature cares about people. I know that because what you have done. This state save thousands on thousands of lives when covid struck. We are now just one of a handful of states with the tools to curb excessive drug costs. We have more ways to grow our health care workforce. We have passed the nations best paid family medical leave program. I heard a story about this just the other day. I went up to the town Country Market on bainbridge to get some maple bars for my grandkids on my bicycle. This woman behind the counter said, governor, i have to tell you something. Now my fellow electric stove that when constituents say that something cryptic you can be for anything, right, so i was prepared, but heres what she said. She said, governor, i had a broken wrist last year and could not do my job and the only thing that kept my family float was the paid family medical leave law, and i really hope you are having those conversations in your districts as well, because your policies are making an enormous difference in peoples lives and now we have more work to do, protecting access to health care is helping washingtonians from mount vernon. They were diagnosed for cancer and expected health care because 3000 a month until she acts as the benefits of our cascade care public option. Her family now pays just 108 a month and the most they will pay out of pocket this year for her husbands Cancer Treatment is 2500. John and sheena are here today as an example of your work. Thank you for allowing us to tell your story. We appreciate that. [applause] policies change lives when they are focused on the people we are here to serve. We give people the chance to succeed. Peoplefocused policies are also how we are addressing homelessness. Something we can just wave a wand and those living in homelessness will simply disappear. But this is the real world, and we have an honest solution. Build more housing, connect people to the right services and they will have a chance to succeed. This time last year a woman found herself in a runaway encampment in seattle. We know that no one can live in danger and expect their conditions to improve. No one can be swept from one dark corner to the other and expect life to get better. We must lift people up and give them the tools, services and power of community necessary to get life back on track. State and local collaboration got her started on her journey to wellness and she said this program renewed my trust. Now she has worked and she has a safe private place to live and she is here today. Congratulations. Where are you . There she is. [applause] washingtonians can see the dozens of encampments along the highways are no longer there. And we need to know that that will continue only if we make additional necessary investments , and they proceed thousands more new Housing Units thanks to your work as well. I want to thank this legislature for going big on housing and trusting it was a necessary decision putting just under 1 billion towards new housing party. These are not the only ways we are making life safer for washingtonians, while i have been in office. We all want to take steps to increase public safety, and in that regard it is not just one solution, but many. This legislature was bold enough to stand up to the nra and passed some of the best gun reforms in washington and did not matter how many defeats we had to take. We finally banned assault weapons in the state. Got reform is public safety. [applause] Washington State also needs more Police Officers, and that is what i hope this budget will do. It funds more state troopers and forensic scientists, a task force on organized retail theft thanks to an idea from our attorney general, and more money for Drug Trafficking investigations, removing barriers to careers in policing by establishing Training Centers all over the state were more recruits are getting some of the best training in the country, including importantly deescalation training. We are drawing today by claudia for went as. For went as. She would not be a Police Officer if this legislature had not invested in criminal justice raining centers. It is impossible for a parent to spend four and a half months away from home for training, but because we invested in these Training Centers, she got to go home from the academy, and because of that resource the people all are safer. Thank you, claudia, for what youre doing. Congratulations on your career. [applause] now we all know we must all continue improving Behavioral Health services in our state. I met someone whose family was devastated by fentanyl. They called at the Nuclear Weapon of drugs. We propose 54 million to fight against opioids and fentanyl to invest in education, Community Health hubs, overdose prevention, Treatment Access and recovery support. We will support people with stories like one story, a member of a tribe whose life languished in addiction to meth and heroin before she got help. She got her life back and is now herself a recovery counselor helping people on the same journey at a wellness center. She is here today, and i want to thank her and the tribe for notches helping tribal members, but the whole community. Thank you, holly. [applause] this Legislature Works wonders when it embraces ambition. We passed the two biggest transportation funding packages in state history during my time in office connecting washington and move ahead washington, yet we know we still face questions about how to meet our ambitions. Now i dont miss suspect we will have all the answers to that this year, but there are things we can do in the next 60 days including helping our system, investing in cleaner, more efficient ferries, and ive asked them to expedite construction, but we also must increase staffing. I propose several things to help us do that and i hope you will pass those measures as well. We need it in the state of washington. We pursued some of the most transformative policies in the nation while i have been in this position. For example, i am proud the leaders of our state are under no illusion that social justice issues were somehow settled 60 years ago with the passage of the civil rights act. We will continue advancing social justice. And we have made equity a part of everything we do in state government, Environmental Justice policies [applause] we have done so with Environmental Justice policies like a new agency in the office of equity. We must maintain our progress against racism and its pernicious influence on the past and present. The genius of america, i believe, is that we can recognize that we are not yet in a state of perfection, but we will always work to form a more perfect union, and that is what we are doing in the state of washington. Before i close, i want to say that there are two grave threats in the United States and unfortunately, in our state today. One threat is to the very basic tenants and blessings of democracy. The other is the ongoing assault on a womans right of choice. We have not forgotten the u. S. Supreme courts frightening decision to eliminate roe v. Wade. Fundamentally, this is an issue of freedom, freedom of choice when facing one of the most intimate and personal decisions in life. Most in this room are committed to protecting that right, but none of us will hope the seats forever. We must face the harsh reality that there are forces in our nation and in our own state intent on destroying the right of choice. We need to join eight other states like ohio, alaska, and illinois. We need to enshrine reproductive freedom in our constitution and pass a constitutional amendment protecting the right of choice this year, and i hope you will proceed to get that done. [cheers and applause] i would like to share with you why i am so optimistic about this session. If i have learned anything with each subsequent legislative session, it is washingtonians are always capable of doing more than they thought we could. When we took office we had all dashes goals that defy the odds audacious goals that defy the odds and i had confidence we could tackle these challenges because i have always believed in the unique talent and ambitions of washingtonians. Washingtonians have more resilience, more love for our state, and more endurance to push towards the sunny outcome of the future than any people on the planet. The next two months we will make the state better at Mental Health, safer against opiates, more supportive for educators and students, and more committed to our climate action. We have made hope for the future possible because washingtonians are never restricted by the past or the bog of the status quo. Inevitably we will always be called upon to do more for the people of washington, and no matter the challenge, we will always do more than we thought possible. It is our honor to be washingtonians. It is our privilege to do this work. And it is our destiny to succeed. Run through the tape. Thank you. Good luck. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2024] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] thank you. [applause] thank you. [applause] [applause] th