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State Bids To Boeing For 777X Production Due Tuesday

Boeing
File photo of a Boeing 777 jetliner.

Washington is competing with more than a dozen other locations to build the next generation Boeing wide-body airliner.

The deadline for states to submit their bids to Boeing in hopes of winning the 777X assembly line is Tuesday. The competitors include Utah, California, Missouri and Alabama.

Despite the vote last month by unionized machinists to reject a new labor contract with Boeing, Washington's aerospace director Alex Pietsch believes Washington still has a “leg up” on other states

“We believe that the easiest path and the path with the least risk for the company and its customers is to build this plane right here in Washington state and we intend to make that case.”

Details of what Boeing’s looking for leaked out last week. Some of the items on the company’s wish list include: significant tax incentives, subsidies to build the assembly line and access to long runways, rail lines and seaports.

The Washington legislature has already approved nearly $9 billion in tax breaks plus other incentives designed to keep 777 production in the Northwest.

Boeing is expected to announce a decision early next year.

Since January 2004, Austin Jenkins has been the Olympia-based political reporter for the Northwest News Network. In that position, Austin covers Northwest politics and public policy, as well as the Washington State Legislature. You can also see Austin on television as host of TVW's (the C–SPAN of Washington State) Emmy-nominated public affairs program "Inside Olympia."