Looking for someone to blame for the higher and the high cost of living? Scapegoats are now available at the grocery store and the gas station. And if you’re looking for solace, try a restaurant, see your doctor or turn on a few extra light bulbs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier today released the Consumer Price Index for the Tacoma-Bremerton-Seattle area, and said overall consumer prices overall rose 0.7 percent in March and April.

Grocery prices rose 2.8 percent while gasoline rose 12.9 percent.

On the other side, the category “food away from home” decreased 1.2 percent, medical care fell 2.4 percent and the cost of electricity fused an 8.9 percent decline.

The price of apparel in the region rose 0.9 percent and the cost of recreation fell 0.3 percent, the BLS said.

And if you’d rather not take sides in the matter, then just stay inside. The cost of housing was unchanged.

Technical workers at Wichita, Kan.'s Spirit AeroSystems have filed a petition to decertify Seattle's Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace as their union representative.

The petition could trigger a June election to determine if SPEEA stays or it goes. The election won't affect unionized Spirit engineers.

The decertification action is the latest in a series of union troubles at Boeing and its former airplane parts unit in Wichita, now called Spirit AeroSystems.

The professional and technical unit at Boeing's remaining Wichita operations decertified the union last year. Boeing's Wichita engineers remain union members.

And Boeing has told another major union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, that it wants a separate contract for its Wichita unit. The Wichita unit now operates under essentially the same contract as does its Puget Sound operations.

Spirit AeroSystems, Boeing's former Wichita, Kan.-based commercial airplanes production arm, is expected to announce today that it will build a new plant in Kinston, N.C.

Local media there are predicting the new plant will build nose sections for the 787 Dreamliner.

The plant could also be used to create composite fuselage sections for the Airbus A350XWB, Airbus's rival to the Boeng 787.

Airbus is expected to sign a contract with Spirit soon to build those fuselage sections.

Kinston is home to what North Carolina calls the Global TransPark, an airport-based industrial park created in 1991 to attract aviation related business to North Carolina.

Boeing had strongly considered Kinston as the final assembly site for its 787 five years ago, but chose Everett instead.

North Carolina is expected to provide Spirit with as much as $500 million in incentives to locate there. The park is equipped with an 11,500-foot runway.

Until now, the industrial park hasn't lived up to the state's expectations attracting only minor industries.

The new Spirit plant is expected to create 1,100 new jobs in Kinston.

Two major Boeing 787 customers, Japan's All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines, are considering asking Boeing to lease them a total of 30 new 767s to compensate them for late deliveries of 787 Dreamliner.

A story in Flight International says Boeing would build the 767s on its Everett assembly line and deliver them to the Japanese carriers on flexible-term leases.

The Japanese airlines as well as other 787 customers are suffering because Boeing is already projecting it will be some 15 months late delivering its first Dreamliner.

Airlines have complained they're due compensation from Boeing for the late deliveries because they'd made plans to incorporate the 787s into their fleets, and now they won't get those planes on time.

The 767, which is the same passenger capacity as the Dreamliner, has had no new orders this year. Some 49 planes remain on backlog.

Boeing had hoped to keep the assembly line working after those commercial orders run out by building 767-based tankers for the Air Force.

A consortium of Northrop Grumman and Airbus-parent EADS won the contract for the tankers, however. Boeing is appealing that decision.

Few widebody aircraft are available in leasing markets to provide capacity for airlines counting on the 787 to provide them extra capacity.

That's why Boeing is considering speeding up production on the 767 line to give those airlines extra lift.

A year after Vought Aircraft Industries Inc. shipped its first fuselage section for the 787 Dreamliner to Boeing, it has yet to deliver the company a fully completed assembly.

The major Boeing Dreamliner partner told the Dallas Morning News this week that it will be at least the end of this year before it delivers a completed fuselage section to Boeing.

Boeing has blamed much of its trouble meeting schedules on the Dreamliner to partners and subcontractors who sent Boeing major sections of the aircraft that were incomplete. Those sections had to be completed at Boeing's Everett plant, a task which the airframe maker had not planned.

Boeing's assembly plan for the 787 called for its major partners in the plane to build complete sections of the aircraft in their plants around the world. Those sections would include all necessary wiring and plumbing. The sections would simply be joined together in a three-day final assembly process at Everett.

Boeing is now saying the first flight of the 787 will be late this year, more than 15 months behind schedule.

vought told the Dallas paper that it is putting its trouble behind it. Those issues, however, are responsible in part of the failure of Vought to make money on the 787 business. The company now says it will begin making money on the fuselage sections it makes for Boeing only after it has built 300. Boeing has orders for nearly 900 of the twin jets.

A year after initiating its reusable grocery bag program, Fred Meyer is seeing some results.

The Portland-based company reported this week that its stores ordered 3.5 million fewer plastic bags in 2007 than in 2006.

The grocer estimates that this diverted about 36,000 pounds – or 18 tons – of plastic bags from the waste stream.

“Our customers asked for this, and they clearly believe it is the right thing to do,” said Melinda Merrill, public affairs director for Fred Meyer Stores.

“Customers in all of our 129 stores across the Northwest are participating and we are grateful to them for making this kind of difference,” she said.

In an effort to reduce waste, the company also:

- Recycled 45,000 tons of loose cardboard.
- Recycled 35 tons of plastic from grocery bags and plastic wrap.
- And donated five million pounds of food, which would otherwise be sent to the landfill, to local food banks, including much-needed meat, dairy and produce items.

Joseph Simon & Sons, a Tacoma metals dealer, has been sold to Seattle-based Graham Capital Group, a privately held investment arm of the Graham family of Canada. The purchase price was not disclosed.

I spoke late yesterday with Paul Raidna, the group’s managing director, who explained that the employees and most of the executive team at Simon will remain, although partner Phil Simon retired when the transaction was completed a week ago Monday. Phil’s younger brother, Norm, will continue as a metals trader, Raidna said.

I’ll be working on the story later today. Stay tuned.