Gluesenkamp Perez Tours Lewis and Clark Bridge, Visits CTE Program, Local Businesses in Cowlitz County

Last week, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA-03) took a boat tour of the Lewis and Clark Bridge, toured the Kelso High School career and technical education (CTE) program, and visited a local manufacturer and butcher shop.

“When the House isn’t in session in D.C., my priority is spending time in communities across Southwest Washington so that I can hear from you about what I should be working on in Congress and the issues facing our communities,” said Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez. “I’m grateful to the hardworking manufacturers, small business owners, and students in Cowlitz County who took time to share with me about their incredible work and what’s on their mind. Strong infrastructure, ag supply chains, and opportunities in the trades and woods are how we strengthen our rural economies.”

During Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez’s visit to the Lewis and Clark Bridge with WSDOT and river users, the group discussed the challenges of maintaining the aging bridge and the need to begin planning for an overhaul or replacement of the bridge.

The bridge was built in 1930, is more than one-and-a-half miles long, and serves more than 20,000 vehicles per day, making it a critical route for interstate commerce. Last month, the bridge was identified by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as one of the 68 U.S. bridges vulnerable to a vessel strike.

In 2023, the bridge was closed for emergency repairs to expansion joints and a fractured floor beam, with employees of one local business being helicoptered to work during the closure.

Following the tour, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez visited Kelso High School’s CTE program to hear from students and educators in automotive, construction, welding, and culinary courses about their work and ways she can continue to support trades education in Congress.

The Congresswoman strongly supports making career and technical education courses more widely available to 6th graders statewide. In November, she wrote to the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to extend the use of federal Perkins funding for CTE courses beginning in 6th grade, rather than 7th grade.

The OSPI responded that this was a legislative priority for the state and helped ensure a bipartisan bill was introduced in the state legislature. This month, the bill passed the state legislature and was sent to the Governor for a signature.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez has introduced bipartisan legislation to expand the eligible uses of 529 education savings plans to include the tools necessary for technical careers, as well as bipartisan bills to improve awareness of trades pathways and support careers in construction.

Afterward, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez toured Pacific Fibre Products in Longview – a manufacturer of pulp wood chips, bark, and soil – to discuss the need to support working forests and local logging, trucking, and manufacturing.

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez cosponsored the bipartisan Future in Logging Careers Act to support family logging businesses. Earlier this year, her legislation was signed into law to improve opportunities for cross-boundary forest management.

To wrap up the day, Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez visited McPhee’s Butcher Block in Woodland, a family butcher shop opened in 2022 in response to the lack of meat processing options in the area. It was an opportunity for the Congresswoman to hear how business has been going for local farmers and how she can best support their interactions with the USDA. 

The Congresswoman has been working to strengthen local ag supply chains and has brought home funding to build public grain storage and transloading at the Port of Chehalis and to support the Southwest Washington Regional Ag Business and Innovation Park in Tenino.