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Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler and Democrat Dave Upthegrove are facing off in the November election after an eventful primary election in the race for Washington Commissioner of Public Lands. The winner will take Commissioner Hilary Franz’s place as the head of the state Department of Natural Resources. The DNR manages 5.6 million acres of state-owned public land and leads state wildfire prevention and response.
Herrera Beutler and Upthegrove represent conflicting ideas about the future of management for the state’s trust lands, with Herrera Beutler calling for sustainable timber harvest that brings revenue to rural communities and Upthegrove promising to bring conservation and environmental justice values to the role.
Trust land management is an issue that hits close to home in Whatcom and Skagit counties. The Northwest Region of DNR, headquartered in Sedro-Woolley, stretches from the northern suburbs of Seattle to the Canadian border west of the Cascades, and includes 387,000 acres of trust lands and 35,000 acres of natural areas managed for wildlife and plant habitat.
Locally, the incidence and severity of wildfires is increasing and some public schools that benefit from timber sales, such as Mount Baker School District, are struggling with budget deficits. DNR timber sales in Whatcom and Skagit have drawn the attention of conservation groups and logging industry representatives alike as the agency works to balance its directives of supporting trust beneficiaries, and improving climate and wildfire resiliency.
Herrera Beutler led in the crowded primary election with 22% of the vote, while a hand recount was required across the state after runner-up Upthegrove beat third-place finisher Sue Kuehl Pederson by only 51 votes of the 1.9 million cast (each received 20.82% of the vote). The result was confirmed in early September.
Raised in Clark County, Herrera Beutler, 45, represented southwest Washington in Congress from 2011 to 2023. After leaving Congress, Herrera Beutler joined the board of the National Kidney Foundation and completed a fellowship-in-residency at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics. She serves as a strategic advisor to the Children’s Hospital Association.
Upthegrove, 53, lives in Des Moines and is the chair of the King County Council. Before that, he served as a state representative for 12 years, where he chaired the House Select Committee on Puget Sound and the House Environment Committee. Upthegrove unsuccessfully ran for Commissioner of Public Lands in 2016.
Both candidates support engaging and collaborating with tribal governments and expanding recreation opportunities on state land, but Upthegrove proposes to set aside an additional 77,000-acre swath of mature forest for conservation.
“We can do better in this state, we can manage forest lands in a way that protects our clean air, clean water and habitat, and fulfills our responsibility to public education,” he said during a Sept. 25 candidate forum hosted by League of Women Voters of Washington and Northwest Public Broadcasting.
Herrera Beutler described state forests as “undermanaged tinderboxes” and blamed increasingly smoky summers and rising property insurance rates on the “activists” who are pulling land out of timber harvest rotation.
“This idea that the environment and the economy are mutually exclusive is old science,” she said, adding that the staff scientists and foresters of the DNR have “already done the work” in planning for sustainable harvest.
Upthegrove has raised nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions according to the Public Disclosure Commission. The bulk of his contributions are donations under $2,500, with the biggest single contribution from the state Democratic Party ($35,000). Herrera Beutler had a little over half a million as of late September, with the state and King County Republican Party making the biggest contributions. Logging and lumber companies also contributed to her campaign.
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
