SEATTLE –– Pacific Power customers may comment this week on the company’s proposed electric and gas rate increases during public hearings in Walla Walla and Yakima.

Pacific Power in July filed paperwork with the Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) requesting a 4.3 percent rate increase. UTC staff recommends a 1.1 percent increase. The three-member UTC, which is not bound by the staff recommendation, will this spring make a final decision on the rate increase request. New rates, if approved, would take effect in May.

Most locations of the Washington Attorney General's Office in Western Washington are open with essential personnel only today.

OLYMPIA – Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna yesterday joined 52 of his fellow state and territorial attorneys general in calling on Congress to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to ensure that vital programs to keep women and families safe continue uninterrupted.

SEATTLE - On National Human Trafficking Awareness Day (January 11th), ethical beauty retailer, The Body Shop, alongside campaign partners ECPAT USA and The Somaly Mam Foundation, will hand over petition signatures of more than 720,000 U.S. citizens to the President of the National Association of Attorneys General, AG Rob McKenna. The petition demonstrates widespread public concern on the sex trafficking crisis affecting children and young people here in the U.S. and across the world. 
 

Also introduces proposals to record executive sessions, reduce lawsuit costs at state-funded hospitals

OLYMPIA – Tracy Lundeen and Ken Paulson experienced a kind of terror that, fortunately, most people will never know. Tracy was stalked for nearly two decades by a boy she met when she was just 13.

“I spent a few minutes helping a fellow student - a stranger - with his homework,” Lundeen said.  “He spent the next 19 years stalking me.  That kind moment turned into a living nightmare that has controlled every aspect of my life.”

OLYMPIA – The Washington State Supreme Court today issued a 7-2 decision in McCleary v. Washington, ruling that the state is not complying with its constitutional duty to “make ample provision for the basic education of all children in Washington.”

The Court recognized the Legislature had enacted “a promising reform package” in its 2009 education reform bill and indicated that legislation, if funded, “will remedy deficiencies in the K-12 funding system.”

OLYMPIA -- The Washington Supreme Court today upheld a challenge to state water law, affirming the state's position that groundwater used for stock-watering purposes is exempt from the requirement to apply for a water permit. 

SEATTLE – Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna issued the following statement today regarding AT&T’s abandonment of its efforts to acquire T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom:

“This merger would have violated laws written to maintain the benefits of real competition, including reasonable prices and quality service. Now that the merger has been abandoned, Washington state consumers will continue to choose from several mobile communications providers, including T-Mobile, which has a major presence in our backyard.”

OLYMPIA – Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna is celebrating the withdrawal of the “Mobile Informational Call Act of 2011” [H.R. 3035], which would have opened up mobile phones to robo-calls from businesses, whether consumers wanted to receive those calls or not.

OLYMPIA–The Attorney General’s Office today (AGO) settled a lawsuit against Moxie Media, its principals Lisa MacLean and Henry Underhill, and two political action committees (PAC) formed by MacLean and Underhill, Conservative PAC and Cut Taxes PAC.