1.19.17 

Suggested lead: After this year, your standard driver's license won't get you on an airliner, but a lawmaker in Olympia is hoping to ease the sting of that new federal law. Dan Frizzell has that story.

Wrap (:90 total): Just over a year from now the Federal REAL ID Act takes effect.  If that makes you say, "Huh?" you're not alone.  But if you plan to hop on a domestic flight, enter a federal courtroom, visit a military base or nuclear plant or do a number of other things covered in the REAL ID Act, you'll need a form of ID that's REAL ID compliant.  That's a catagory that includes more than a dozen different documents, including Washington's enhanced driver's license and identification card.  But because those enhanced cards require proof of citizenship, and cost more, a new bill heard today in Olympia will give Washington residents a choice: They can continue to use the state's standard license, which will be marked as not valid for federal purposes early next year. . . or they can opt for the enhanced card. Interestingly, the bill's sponsor, House Transportation chair Representative Judy Clibborn, isn't recommending that Washington citizens necessarily spring for the enhanced license.

CLIBBORN: "I'm encouraging people to look in their wallet first, and not just rush out an buy an enhanced driver's license.  An enhanced driver's license is more expensive than a passport card.  It does exactly the same thing.  It gets you into the same buildings, it gets you onto a flight. And if you have a passport, you don't need anything new." [:19]

Clibborn, a Democrat from Mercer Island, said federally accepted alternatives to the enhanced driver's license include military IDs, merchant mariner credentials, foreign passports, permanent resident cards, and several others, all listed on the TSA website.  In Olympia, I'm Dan Frizzell.