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State Sen. Doug Ericksen scheduled a Tuesday afternoon news conference in Olympia to explain how he can be working on two coasts of America at one time, as a lawmaker in the Washington state legislature and part of Trump's "beachhead" team at the EPA in Washington, D.C.

The Tuesday presser was canceled -- Ericksen's people said his flight across the country had been canceled.

He was slated to meet reporters at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, and then at 1 p.m. No show. It has now been rescheduled, yet again, for 9:15 on Thursday morning.

"Doug Ericksen can't even show up to tell us he won't have any problem showing up," quipped Alex Bond of a suddenly revitalized Washington State Democratic Party.

The Ferndale Republican is a man challenged on both coasts.

In Olympia, he serves as chief ally of Big Oil and railroads as chairman of the Senate Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee (SEETC). Ericksen has consistently topped lists as the state capitol's most wined and dined legislator.

Ericksen is chief sponsor of a bill that would create the new felony crime of "economic terrorism," under which nonviolent demonstrators who sit down on highways or railroad tracks could be charged. Such a law could have been used, once upon a time,  to haul away Dr. Martin Luther King.

In D.C., however, there is the opportunity to begin gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, and later perhaps to migrate back to this Washington as the EPA's regional administrator.

President Trump is expected to sign an executive order within days that will pull America out of the Paris agreement, which aims to combat climate change. The news was made public by Myron Ebell, a former climate change adviser to Donald Trump who took charge of the President’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team. "[The US would] clearly change its course on climate policy...[Mr. Trump is] pretty clear that the problem or the crisis has been overblown and overstated...He could do it by executive order tomorrow, or he could wait and do it as part of a larger package. There are multiple ways and I have no idea of the timing.

Ericksen and ex-State Sen. Don Benton, who co-chaired the Trump presidential campaign in Washington, have joined the EPA beachhead team. Ericksen is its communications director: The EPA isn't doing much communicating these days.

Just because he can't be there in Olympia, Ericksen told the Bellingham Herald, doesn't mean he does not care.

"Yes, it's difficult, but thank goodness for cell phones, computers, Skype," he said.  "I'm on top of everything.  I'm working on my computer, on my bills, on sponsoring legislation."

Yet ...

The Republicans don't have a Senate majority without him. Hence, they are avoiding floor votes  like hikers steer clear of rattlesnakes on the Yakima Rim or Chelan Lakeshore trails.

Ericksen has missed half the meetings of the SEETC, and three quarters of meetings of the Transportation Committee, of which he is vice chairman.

The 42nd District, in Whatcom County, used to be one of the legislature's "swing" counties, where competition resulted in a succession of competent, front-rank state senators.

With the last redistricting commission, however, the surgical skills of ex-GOP Sen. Slade Gorton were applied, excising neighborhoods from liberal Bellingham and making the district much safer GOP territory. Rural Whatcom County is home to two refineries and an aluminum smelter.

The Democrats on the commission were taken to the cleaners, with four Western Washington legislative districts made more Republican.

One lawmaker, State Sen. Brian Dansel, R-Republic, has already departed the state to take up a new job at the U.S. Department of the Interior. The northeast Washington seat was quickly filled with a fellow Republican.

Ericksen has learned from his new boss in the White House. Rarely has there been such buildup to a state senator's news conference.

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