The recent news Boeing is intending to transfer much of the 777X engineering work should be a warning to our states leaders. The engineering efforts I spent 30 of my 36 years there involving the engine nacelles will apparently be done elsewhere. One can debate what caused the change and it’s unlikely anything can be done to prevent it.

However, the current efforts to convince Boeing to build the -X composite wing here are not “helped” by Gov. Inslee’s recent announcement for plans to reduce CO2 emissions in our state. Doing so will significantly increase energy costs, a major contributor to the cost of any composite structure, let alone a massive wing. This surely weights against Boeing fabricating it here.

Unfortunately most of us won’t have that “flexibility” to relocate. What’s absurd is our state’s efforts will have a minuscule affect on atmospheric CO2 levels whose increase over the last 15 years have had a minuscule effect on global temperatures. Limiting state CO2 emissions is truly a high cost/ low benefit proposition.

Bill Hirt, Bellevue