The Trailer: Jay Inslee Is Cheerfully Campaigning and Issuing Apocalyptic Warnings

March 14, 2019

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by David Weigel (Washington Post) ... On Monday morning, when Washington Gov. Jay Inslee visited the Seminole Springs mobile home park, the husks of cars and houses were still sitting in pools of melted plastic. It had been four months since some of the worst forest fires in southern California's history. Inslee, joined by some of the people who'd lost their homes, was there to explain why man-made climate change was responsible.

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Inslee, 68, jumped into the Democratic primary this month as the candidate who would fight climate change. His many rivals don't know what to make of that. Every Democrat seeking the party's nomination believes that the Earth is warming and that Obama-era environmental standards need to be fully restored. Every senator and member of Congress in the race had also embraced the Green New Deal, the Marshall Plan-size project to restructure the economy and bring net emissions to zero by 2030. All of them have found that talking about climate change, or about Democrats needing to “believe in science,” generates massive applause.

To Inslee, it looks like other candidates are “checking a box” on climate — good intentions and no assurance of action.

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Asked what he thought the federal government might limit or tax or ban to change behavior — gas-powered cars? Meat? — Inslee suggested that enough investment in renewable energy would “provide multiple choices” for people to get to work making cleaner cars and appliances, and develop “technologies that would allow them to enjoy life as they do now.” If anyone says he wants to ban automobiles, he points to his “spiffy, blue” GM Bolt, an electric vehicle that sells for more than $35,000. Republican concerns about overreach, he said, were as frivolous as their assertions that the Affordable Care Act would lead to “death panels” for the aged.

“A lot of these Republican politicians, if their house was on fire and the community made a bucket brigade to put it out, would say, 'That's socialist,' " Inslee said. “They've just got to quit worrying about their ideology and start worrying about their grandchildren a little bit more.”

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“You can't solve this through reconciliation,” he said. “There are multiple things, including regulatory actions, that really can't be done through reconciliation. You look at the clean fuel standard, you look at 100 percent [carbon-free] grid, you look at banning super pollutants — it's too big a lift. You can't do a major mobilization of the economy through that process.”

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Inslee, in conversation with the evacuees who'd been invited back for the tour, reminded them that he had written a book about the risks of climate change in 2007 and that he had been working on the issue in some way or another for his entire career. They were happy to hear it.

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“We have been hoping that the spirit of Teddy Roosevelt would be rekindled in the Republican Party, and it hasn't,” Inslee said after the trailer park visit, talking about a long-ago conservationist focus inside the GOP. “The kind of things that we have to do to mobilize to defeat climate change — we only have one party that's willing to do it. I wish it were otherwise.”

Inslee also separated himself from other Democrats by allowing a super PAC, Act Now on Climate, to raise unlimited money for a campaign that will support him from the outside. The rest of the field has denounced super PACs; that, to Inslee, meant “unilaterally disarming” and allowing the president to “beat our eventual nominee over the head” in 2020.

“They are not as committed to defeating climate change as I am,” Inslee said of his rival Democrats. READ MORE

Governor Inslee Campaigns on Climate Change (Our Daily Planet; includes VIDEO)

INSLEE TO CONGRESS: TIME TO ACT ON CLIMATE: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Gov. Inslee unveils first of many climate proposals for 2020 (The Hill)

Inslee’s Climate Proposal Ups the Ante (Our Daily Planet; includes VIDEO)

Jay Inslee promised serious climate policy and he is delivering (VOX)

Inslee wants US to hit net-zero GHGs by 2045 (Argus Media)

A Call to Action for a Climate Conservation Corps (Data For Progress)

Inslee climate plan calls for investing $9 trillion in green jobs (The Hill)

Jay Inslee wants to be the climate change president. His record shows what a tough sell that issue could be. (Washington Post)

The Energy 202: Democrats slammed Biden on climate change. But what would a 'middle ground' even look like? (Washington Post)

Gov. Jay Inslee releases most hard-hitting climate plan of all presidential hopefuls (Our Daily Planet)

AOC BACKS INSLEE'S CLIMATE PLAN: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: Democratic presidential candidate and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee will urge Congress to take action on climate in testimony today before an Energy and Commerce Committee panel. Inslee has put climate change at the forefront of his campaign, and the state he runs is among the most aggressive in trying to cut its emissions.

In his testimony, Inslee praises his state's investments in wind energy and bills working their way through the state legislature that will squeeze more carbon out of its economy. But he will save his toughest words for the administration. "Unfortunately, at the federal level, this administration isn't just failing to act — they are lighting the match and setting the fire," his prepared remarks say. The Environment and Climate Change subcommittee will also hear from the mayors of Columbia, S.C., Salt Lake City, Utah, Carmel, Ind., Beaver County, Pa., and Midland, Texas. READ MORE

Excerpt from VOX: Getting the carbon out of new cars

Inslee’s policy focuses on “new light-duty passenger vehicles, medium-duty trucks, and buses,” which together represent about 70 percent of transportation emissions.

The centerpiece here is cranking up CAFE standards until they effectively mandate 100 percent zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) for all new sales in 2030 forward. (This is, notably, something within the president’s power to do without Congress, though it will by no means be easy or straightforward.)

That core piece is again attended by a host of complementary policies:

a national low-carbon fuels standard (LCFS), which would encourage low-emissions transportation fuels;
investments in the US ZEV manufacturing base and in battery recycling;
expanded ZEV tax credits and feebates;
a “Clean Cars for Clunkers” program that would establish “fuel-economy based trade-in rebates for consumers to exchange their fuel-inefficient cars or trucks for new ZEVs”;
rapid electrification of the federal vehicle fleet and work with states to do the same for state fleets;
massive investment in EV charging infrastructure;
federal financing for state and local efforts to retire gas and diesel buses in exchange for electric buses (which, as I have argued, are going to be the cutting edge of the EV market).

This stepwise increase in the market for electric vehicles will work in sync with clean electricity to tackle two of the biggest carbon problems at once. And cleaner, quieter vehicles — especially quieting the incessant din of city buses — will provide and immediate and tangible benefit to the public.

This leaves plenty in transportation (notably heavy trucks and airplanes) untouched for now. The campaign promises subsequent policy on that stuff and, crucially, on efforts to reduce vehicle use through urban density and public transit. But this is a solid foundation. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: AOC BACKS INSLEE'S CLIMATE PLAN: New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backed Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's climate plan as "the most serious" and "comprehensive" in the 2020 field. In a tweet Saturday, the sponsor of the Green New Deal resolution said Inslee's plan is "big enough, fast enough, economically stimulating for working people, [and] acknowledges injustice + w/ an eye to make communities whole."

Inslee last week expanded his initial climate plan, releasing an "Evergreen Economy Plan " that included 28 policy proposals outlining how his administration would reach its carbon-cutting goals. READ MORE