The port needed Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s help.
Driving in a white van along the Columbia River that separates her home state of Washington from Oregon, executives from the Port of Vancouver showed the first-term Democrat how the aging docks shipping wheat and wind turbines needed tens of millions of dollars in improvements.
They knew they had an ally in Gluesenkamp Perez, who had petitioned Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for a federal maritime infrastructure grant and secured half a million dollars in earmarks in a committee-approved funding bill to expand or improve the century-old docks.
“People do not care about ...