https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/3/1/18244206/jay-inslee-2020-campaign-president-climate-change-interview
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In 2007, Inslee released a book (co-written with Bracken Hendricks) called Apollo’s Fire: Igniting America’s Clean Energy Economy. It called for a broad suite of emission-reducing policies, led by massive investments in American clean energy jobs, with a focus on environmental justice. If that sounds familiar, well, they didn’t call it a Green New Deal, but it was pretty green, and pretty New Deal.
https://islandpress.org/books/apollos-fire
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He told me that climate change is his “driving motivation” and why he believes it can unite the party. We discussed the kind of procedural reforms that might be necessary to actually get climate legislation passed — he calls the Senate filibuster an “antebellum rule in the internet age” and wants to get rid of it, has signed Washington up to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, and supports statehood (and thus Senate votes) for Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
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Ultimately, I believe there is one central, defining, existential-with-a-capital-E threat to the future of the nation: climate change. It is clear that it will only be defeated if the United States shows leadership. And that will only happen if the US president makes it a clear priority — the number one, foremost, paramount goal of the next administration.
That is the only way we will be victorious in this fight. And I believe I’m uniquely positioned, by willingness and history and vision, to be able to do that. So I do feel compelled to do it. On my last day, I want to be able to say I did everything I could on [climate change].
David Roberts
So you’re building your campaign on climate change?
Jay Inslee
That is my driving motivation. I have many things that I care about in life — from criminal justice reform to pay equity, minimum wage, ending the death penalty, passing net neutrality, reproductive parity — and I’ve done all of those things in my state. I’d like to do them in our country.
But we have to have a priority on [climate change]. I’ve been at this for two decades. I understand the challenges inherent in getting this job done. It is a big, heavy lift. There’s many things that will help — improving voting rights, ending the filibuster, many structural things that will help — but you still have to have that presidential leadership. It will only happen if we have a leader who will prioritize it, who will develop a mandate during a campaign to do it (having that mandate is very important), and use the political capital necessary to get it done.
David Roberts
Do you believe Obama did not personally put enough political capital behind the 2008 climate bill?
Jay Inslee
This is not to be critical, it’s just an observation: The Democratic team said, “We’re going to do health care first.” And so climate didn’t get done. Now, could it have gotten done if it was put first? There are no guarantees in the historical retrospectoscope. But once health care went first, there wasn’t enough juice to get climate through.
We simply cannot have that experience again. So [climate change] can’t be on a laundry list. It can’t be something that candidates check the box on. It has to be a full-blooded effort to mobilize the United States in all capacities. I feel uniquely committed to that, among all of the potential candidates, and I understand what’s necessary to do it.
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Now it’s a Paradise, California, burning down. Kids can’t go swimming because of air quality. Houston is drowned; Miami Beach has to raise their roads. This is now a retinal issue. People see it — they don’t have to intellectually project the future.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/16/18096245/paradise-california-wildfire
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And yes, we’ve had frustrations, but we have had progress here. I was very involved in passing the renewable portfolio standard [in 2006]. We went from zero to a billion-dollar wind industry in the last several years. We have moved the needle on the electrification of our transportation system. We’re number one or two, or we used to be, with electric cars [one recent study ranks Washington the third-friendliest state for EVs, behind California and, oddly, Georgia], because of the work we’ve been doing with incentives and building the electrical charging station grid on the interstate.
https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/energy/energy-independence-act/
https://insideevs.com/here-are-the-most-electric-car-friendly-states-in-the-u-s/
We have created a clean energy research facility that’s doing great work. We built a clean energy development program. So I would say we have had substantial progress here, and I have been involved in virtually all of that in some way.
https://www.cei.washington.edu/
https://www.commerce.wa.gov/growing-the-economy/energy/clean-energy-fund/
It’s not like we haven’t been busy. Yes, it has been frustrating. The oil and gas companies spent $32 million [to defeat a GND-like ballot initiative]. But the most important renewable energy source is perseverance. I’m serious. That is the secret to success here.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/7/18069940/election-results-2018-energy-carbon-fracking-ballot-initiatives
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/28/17899804/washington-1631-results-carbon-fee-green-new-deal
And we are persevering. So this year, we are advancing a package of bills in the legislature, including a 100 percent clean grid bill.
https://www.knkx.org/post/gov-jay-inslee-unveils-ambitious-legislative-climate-package
https://nwenergy.org/featured/washingtons-100-clean-electricity-bill-has-its-first-hearing/
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David Roberts
The Green New Deal takes the approach of tying climate policy together with economic renewal, jobs, and justice. In many ways, it is the opposite of the narrow carbon pricing approach, trying to microtarget carbon in a way that can generate bipartisan cooperation. Do you believe all those policies belong together?
Jay Inslee
We should do what I said we should do in my book: a major industrial transformation to decarbonize the US economy that will result in millions of new jobs and greater prosperity. Unfortunately, no movies were made of my book [laughs], and it didn’t capture people’s imagination in 2007.
So no, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this approach. I think it’s necessary and suitable to the times. It’s a major reindustrialization of America and we should talk about it in these terms. We need to build things again, all around the country. We’ve got to get communities involved in that. I think the youth movement on this is fantastic.
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David Roberts
Have you endorsed the Green New Deal?
Jay Inslee
Well, I don’t get to vote on it, but I am totally in sync and believe that it is exactly what I have said for decades. I think these aspirational goals are appropriate to the time and the scale. I love the fact that it is embracing economic justice issues as well. I think we have come to understand more about how marginalized communities have been the victims of climate change.
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Jay Inslee
I believe the filibuster is an artifact of history that no longer fits American democracy. It is such an impediment to our ability to respond to multiple challenges. We know how it would prevent climate change legislation of any dimension from moving through the Senate. In the short term, it’s very difficult to see how we move forward without elimination of the filibuster.
By the way, it has been eliminated, any time Mitch McConnell wants to eliminate it! It’s a vestigial organ that has been transformed from a rarely used protection of regional economies to a weaponized system for the right wing by Mitch McConnell. This is not your grandfather’s filibuster; it’s a nuclear weapon. It has to go if we’re to make progress on climate change, that’s absolutely clear.
But that’s not the only reason it needs to go. I have believed for some time that democracy means one person, one vote. No senator should be looked at as superior and no senator should be looked at as inferior. The filibuster gives one senator one and a
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But the filibuster means being chained to the past, because it’s a protection of the status quo. We cannot be chained to the past by a nondemocratic institution. The world is changing too fast. Bottom line, you can’t have antebellum rules in the Senate in the internet age.
Jay Inslee
I’ve always supported statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. People have got to have representation — 700,000 people in the District of Columbia is as large as Wyoming.
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David Roberts
Are you still thinking about some sort of carbon pricing system, or hooking up with California’s system?
Jay Inslee
This year, I haven’t proposed a carbon pricing system. I thought it was too soon after the initiative. We need some victories. So I decided to go the other route. But what I have proposed has roughly the same level of carbon reductions as the initiative would have had.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/28/17899804/washington-1631-results-carbon-fee-green-new-deal
I would not rule out some sort of carbon pricing system, federally or statewide, in the future, but this is what I’ve proposed to move forward right now.
David Roberts
We’re constantly being told that the public’s changing their mind on climate change. But in Washington, two initiatives put straight to voters [I-732 and I-1631], very different varieties of carbon policy systems, were both rejected.
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/18/13012394/i-732-carbon-tax-washington
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/28/17899804/washington-1631-results-carbon-fee-green-new-deal
Jay Inslee
First off, if we had an initiative on the ballot that said, “Washington state should move on climate change,” that would’ve passed. We could’ve had a hundred different initiatives I believe would have passed, involving regulatory approaches, many of which are the things I’ve proposed in the legislature this year. The one that did get on the ballot was the hardest to pass, the pricing system.
But that is only one of the many tools at our disposal, from 100 percent clean grid to clean fuel standards, direct incentive programs, hydrophobic elimination, and building infrastructure for clean public transportation.
Don’t let one message on one plan stop an effort to build a new, clean economy.
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David Roberts
One final Washington state question: I wanted to ask how you see the role of density and public transit in the climate fight. Specifically, there’s a bill brewing now among House Democrats in Washington state that’s going to cut billions of dollars of funding from Sound Transit 3 funding. Would you veto that bill?
https://www.theurbanist.org/2019/02/23/car-tab-bill-returns-house-democrats-move-to-rollback-sound-transit-3-funding/
Jay Inslee
On the legislation, I can’t make any blanket statements because I don’t know what they’re proposing. Clearly we need to continue investment in Sound Transit. Public transportation is absolutely central to defeating climate change. We have to reorient our thinking, just because of geography.
We’re not making any more dirt. There’s just no more land to use.
David Roberts
And people keep coming.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/114000-more-people-seattle-now-this-decades-fastest-growing-big-city-in-all-of-united-states/
Jay Inslee
And people keep coming. So we have to increase the carrying capacity per mile of every mile of corridor. That’s just a simple physics fact. That means you have to have more options for public transportation. I’m highly protective of that.
I also think we’re going to have to recognize the need for more density. This creates controversy, but again, it’s a physical principle. We’re either going to have more density or we’re going to have single-family dwellings at the top of Mount Rainier.
This is an issue we’re going to have to grapple with. There is a bill in the legislature to promote more density. I hope it advances.
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