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A pivotal time
In preserving with our dedication to transparency concerning Microsoft’s public coverage priorities, we yearly share our legislative agenda for the approaching yr. This yr, that agenda is prefaced by two main milestones.
First, this would be the final legislative session of Jay Inslee’s tenure as Governor of Washington. Microsoft thanks him, his administration, and the legislators with whom he has partnered over the previous 12 years, for his or her many contributions to the well being and well-being, vitality, and future success of our state. During Gov. Inslee’s administration, Washington confronted the unprecedented problem of a worldwide pandemic, an occasion that modified all of us. But our state additionally made main investments in housing, infrastructure, training, and clear power – together with passing essentially the most complete local weather coverage of any state. These are investments that can profit generations to come back.
We have one other main milestone on the horizon: Microsoft’s 50th anniversary as an organization, which we are going to have fun in April 2025. Over its historical past, our firm developed from promoting packaged software program to offering digital providers to making a related cloud computing atmosphere to now being a pacesetter in each the event of generative AI and in serving to to determine a basis for the accountable use of synthetic intelligence know-how.
Like all the pieces, we owe our capacity to develop to the atmosphere wherein we sit. For Microsoft, our house is Washington state. It’s not an exaggeration to say that our success as now we have developed over our historical past has relied on selections like these made by Gov. Inslee and present legislative leaders, and by those that have come earlier than them. These public leaders have labored to create an atmosphere centered on innovation, development, and fairness. This strategy has helped place each Microsoft and the area as leaders in a spread of game-changing applied sciences like AI and cloud computing, quantum computing, and hydrogen power manufacturing and fusion. Together, we are actually on the forefront of the worldwide financial system.
In brief, Microsoft has grown and thrived as a result of we’re positioned in a state that has created the situations permitting our firm and lots of others to develop and thrive.
Bedrock commitments
Given this historical past, and with each our company and a few 50,000 of our workers calling Washington house, we stay dedicated to seeing the Pacific Northwest preserve its aggressive financial place globally, guarantee equitable financial alternatives, and supply a top quality of life for everybody residing right here. These are the foundational objectives we remember as we proceed our long-standing coverage partnerships and investments in training, housing, transportation, and financial alternative.
Education and skilling
Both financial alternative and high quality of life start with a very good job. More than ever, rewarding and satisfying job alternatives require abilities and credentials past a highschool diploma. This consists of high-demand fields like computing and well being care. In reality, the latest estimates are that 72% of the roles sooner or later would require some type of post-secondary credential, however solely 40% of Washington highschool college students earn such a credential by age 26.
In response to those tendencies, now we have two coverage priorities for the 2024 session: We should proceed to broaden rigorous laptop science training in any respect ranges – Ok-12, group and technical faculties, and our four-year public universities; and we should enhance enrollment in all method of post-secondary training for Washington college students in order that Washington college students are ready for Washington jobs.
For context, legislators have made vital commitments to create pathways for all college students to pursue these credentials; we rank second within the nation in monetary help availability, with a broad vary of packages starting from the Washington College Grant to the distinctive public-private partnership that funds the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship. Unfortunately, these assets aren’t being absolutely utilized; we’re second-to-last within the nation for scholar completion of the FAFSA type that’s required to safe many sources of help.
Thus, we encourage legislative and training leaders to:
- Continue investing funds from the not too long ago created Workforce Education Investment Account in data-driven methods to extend post-high college credential attainment
- Identify extra methods to construct public consciousness and supply high quality counseling so college students and their households perceive the necessity for post-secondary credentials and the varied pathways obtainable to earn them
- Provide wrap-around assist providers, equivalent to these requested by the University of Washington of their legislative package deal, for all college students, and particularly grownup learners, to assist them full their packages of research and attain the credentials they should pursue rewarding careers
- Expand Career Connect Washington’s work-related studying experiences, which assist open college students’ eyes to the profession alternatives that lie forward of them
Housing for all
Another key element of high quality of life is protected and steady housing that’s reasonably priced and handy to jobs, providers, and group. Put merely, we want extra housing of every type and for all earnings ranges, throughout Washington – and particularly within the Puget Sound area.
In its 2023 session, the legislature made substantial progress in assist of that purpose: A billion {dollars} in new housing investments have been made, together with the historic investments within the Housing Trust Fund and the growth of the Land Acquisition Program overseen by the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, a program that Microsoft was proud to assist with three-to-one matching funds and that’s already producing outcomes. Additional progress was made in eradicating zoning and different regulatory boundaries to the creation of latest housing choices. But a Department of Commerce evaluation exhibits that Washington nonetheless wants a further a million housing models over the following twenty years; this isn’t an issue that appeared in a single day, and it’s not an issue that may be solved in a single yr. So, lawmakers should proceed to pursue a variety of extra housing methods to deal with the rising demand for and rising price of housing.
In addition to spurring housing building and considerably growing the availability of housing, we should additionally take steps to deal with different impacts of the housing scarcity. Homelessness, coupled with the opioid disaster and different behavioral well being points, has led to unprecedented challenges for the state’s emergency rooms, that are being overrun. Challenge Seattle has issued a report that features a collection of suggestions for responding to this emergency, and we’re asking the legislature to evaluation and undertake these methods.
Moving individuals and items
Transportation is important to sustaining regional financial competitiveness, supporting sustainable development, and preserving and bettering our native high quality of life. The subsequent main transportation funds can be developed in 2025. In advance of that, nevertheless, there are key selections to be made round present tasks, particularly guaranteeing well timed completion of the 520 bridge hall venture.
We additionally made some progress transferring high-speed rail nearer to actuality once we acquired recognition and an preliminary grant from the Federal Corridor Identification Program. This places us in line for added federal funding and it’s important that we protect the matching state {dollars} within the present transportation funds to leverage these federal investments.
Clean power
In 2020, when Microsoft announced its dedication to turn out to be carbon detrimental by 2030, we pledged to additionally turn out to be energetic members in public coverage discussions to emphasise the unbreakable hyperlink between electrical energy coverage and carbon coverage and assist advance international decarbonization efforts
We should work collectively to get as a lot agency, inexperienced energy onto the ability grid as rapidly as attainable. This would require taking a tough take a look at our allowing and siting processes and figuring out methods to make them extra environment friendly, in order that inexperienced assets could be introduced on line extra rapidly. Use of digital instruments, together with synthetic intelligence, have to be thought-about to additional enhance useful resource siting and allowing processes.
Ultimately, we can not afford to concentrate on a single resolution; we want an “all of the above” strategy to plotting our clear power future. In addition to hydro, photo voltaic, wind, and different power sources historically thought-about renewable, the state should now flip its consideration to persevering with to meaningfully advancing analysis and growth of nuclear and fusion as potential sources of protected and ample power.
AI
Microsoft is a know-how firm and at present, we’re collectively in a brand new age of motive, powered by know-how, led by individuals, and fueled by innovation. We are additionally at an inflection level and a novel AI second. How we handle and reply to speedy advances in synthetic intelligence is important to our collective future.
Just as new applied sciences will redefine the transportation and power sectors, synthetic intelligence will redefine how know-how serves all of us, advancing humanity’s capacity to assume, motive, and categorical ourselves. We are impressed by the huge potential of AI growth to assist public good; we’re equally practical in regards to the threat of the know-how being utilized in dangerous methods. As such, Microsoft has been and can stay a pacesetter in advocating for the accountable use of AI. Our perspective on this concern, as an organization that has been engaged on these points instantly for a variety of years, is contained in our most up-to-date Principles for Responsible AI. We will work with the governor, legislators, and different elected officers as they have interaction in coverage deliberations, and we are going to assist accountable approaches that promote innovation and alternative for Washington state.
As we sit up for the 2024 legislative session, we’re energized by how lawmakers’ previous selections have positioned Washington state for achievement, and we’re much more optimistic in regards to the alternatives that lie forward.