Tom Banse
Regional Correspondent
About
Tom Banse covers national news, business, science, public policy, Olympic sports, and human interest stories across Washington state. Now semi-retired, Banse is an Olympia-based reporter with more than three decades of experience covering the Pacific Northwest. Most of his career was spent with public radio's Northwest News Network, but now in semi-retirement his work appears on multiple nonprofit news outlets including KUOW. His recent areas of focus range from transportation, U.S.-Canada borderlands, the Northwest region's planned hydrogen hub, and emergency preparedness.
Previously, Tom covered state government and the Washington Legislature for 12 years. He got his start in radio at WCAL-FM, a public station in southern Minnesota. Reared in Seattle, Tom graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota with a degree in American Studies.
Location: Olympia
Languages: English, German
Stories
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Rehearsing for ‘The Big One’ on a room-sized chess board
Close to 200 federal, state and tribal emergency preparedness planners gathered around a giant map of the Pacific Northwest this week to rehearse and critique the federal response plan for "The Big One." The three-day Cascadia earthquake discussion exercise partially replaced a much bigger planned dress rehearsal that was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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Big factory for electric car battery materials coming to Moses Lake, Washington
San Francisco Bay area company Sila Nanotechnologies purchased a vacant factory in Moses Lake, Washington, and announced plans Tuesday to open a big operation there to produce advanced battery materials to power electric cars.
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NW electric utilities spending millions to reduce risk of wildfire
Private electric utilities in the Pacific Northwest are planning tens of millions of dollars in upgrades to reduce the risk that their power lines could spark wildfires during extreme weather. Utilities such as Pacific Power, Avista, Idaho Power, Portland General Electric and Puget Sound Energy are either required to or are voluntarily submitting wildfire mitigation plans.
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Red beer, takeout coupons, and big giveaways deployed to recruit more NW blood donors
Alcohol and blood donation don't seem at first glance to go together. But that pairing is one of several creative strategies deployed by major Pacific Northwest blood centers to drum up more donors this spring.
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Dozens of Northwest places have a slur in their name. People are coming up with replacement names
People with an interest in geography or Pacific Northwest history are coming up with replacement names for dozens of places around the region that currently have a name considered derogatory. The U.S. Secretary of the Interior launched the search for new names by ordering a specific racial slur stricken off the map nationwide as expeditiously as possible.
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Riding or hiking across Washington state just got easier with new bridge over Columbia River
The Columbia River has long divided the two halves of Washington's cross-state Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. Now, a rebuilt rail trestle over the river south of Vantage connects the two sides making it easier for cyclists, horse riders and hikers to undertake a spectacular east-west journey.
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Environment
Washington wants drivers to plug into clean cars by 2030
Democratic-led states on the West Coast are setting ambitious timelines to phase out sales of gasoline-powered cars and light trucks. The Washington Legislature just approved a goal that all new cars sold in the state beginning with model year 2030 be electric. Oregon and California have 2035 as their target. Some of these dates are aspirational, but one has teeth.
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'Green’ aluminum inches closer in Northwest, if only they can power the last remaining smelter
The push to restart the last remaining aluminum smelter in the Pacific Northwest got a boost this week as well as absorbed a setback. The prospective new owners of the idled Alcoa Intalco Works smelter near Ferndale, Washington, secured $10 million in taxpayer support to upgrade the decades-old factory. But separately, the Bonneville Power Administration said it turned down a request for a large amount of reduced-rate electricity to operate the energy-intensive aluminum smelter.
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Cascadia bullet train on track for big bucks to get rolling, but big uncertainty remains
For more than five years, Washington state, Oregon and British Columbia have collaborated on studies of a possible Cascadia bullet train to run between Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, Canada. This winter, the Washington Legislature approved money for yet more studies. But state lawmakers also set aside a much bigger sum to attract federal support that could advance the bullet train dream toward being shovel-ready.
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Pickleball develops pros, prize money, biz ecosystem as it's designated Washington's state sport
Next week, Gov. Jay Inslee is expected to sign a law designating pickleball as the official state sport of Washington. The mash-up of badminton, tennis and pingpong has come a long way since its invention on Bainbridge Island, Washington, in 1965. Skilled local pickleball players have turned pro and brand new businesses are opening to cater to the pandemic boom in recreational play.