By Jessica Goad

Newly-minted Washington Governor Jay Inslee has been lauded for his impassioned views on environmental issues from climate change to renewable energy.  Indeed, his first official act as governor was to write a letter to a clean energy company inviting it to relocate to the state.

In his first press conference as governor last week, Inslee addressed another aspect of the climate change fight in the Pacific Northwest:  proposed coal export terminals that would allow for the shipping of 150 million of tons of coal every year from public lands in Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin abroad.

In response to a question about whether or not federal government analyses of the terminals should take into account the carbon emissions that will come from the burning of the coal exported through the terminals, Inslee said:

It is clear that there are ramifications ultimately if we burn the enormous amounts of Powder River Basin coal that are exported through our ports… It is an enormous number of tons of carbon dioxide that will be released into the atmosphere, it doesn’t matter where it’s burned, it ends up in Puget Sound.  That is a physical fact.

The challenge is to figure out, frankly, for our state from a policy standpoint is where you sort of draw the line in evaluating those impacts from any carbon-based system.  I think that’s a challenge for us. I will say that from what I know, this is the largest decision we will be making as a state from a carbon pollution standpoint certainly during my lifetime, and nothing comes even close to it.  So I’m going to be giving some thought to this.

Watch it:

Read more

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee will launch a campaign for Washington governor early next week, wading back into state politics after more than a decade in Congress, a Democrat familiar with his plans said Thursday.

Inslee is one of the leading climate hawks in Congress.  Here are two short videos from my March 2010 post, Inslee: “This is a moment for scientists to channel their inner Rambo”:

Read more

With Gov. Chris Gregoire’s (D-WA) announcement that she will not seek reelection in 2012, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) has emerged as the frontrunner to get the Democratic nomination for the Washington governorship. Inslee is one of the fiercest climate hawks in the nation, leading the Congress in the fights to fight climate pollution and build a clean energy economy. Since 2003, he has fought for a new Apollo-style mission to mobilize the entire nation for clean energy. In 2009, Inslee co-founded the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition, because of the need for “bold, aggressive action” to fight the climate crisis. And he has been one of the strongest defenders in the nation of science, scientists, and the American dream against climate polluters and their right-wing allies, as these ThinkProgress videos show:

April 2011: Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution.

April 2010: Mine safety is as silly as global warming — they’re both deadly serious and they’re not silly at all.

March 2010: I would counsel people who don’t want to move on this to just get over their fear. Because frankly it’s fear that’s holding back. It’s people who are afraid that Americans aren’t smart enough to invent new technologies to deal with that. That we’re not bold enough like we used to be when we went to the moon with the original Apollo project.

December 2009: It’s troublesome to me that people who put man on the moon, people who discovered water on the moon, the people who are doing great research figuring out how the oceans are acidic, some of whom are my constituents — It’s disturbing to me that people would come to this chamber and call them fascists!

October 2009: You can’t solve ocean acidification without controlling CO2 and yet people are still trying to write books to deceive the American public. And we ought to blow the whistle on them, we’re blowing the whistle on one today, we’ll continue to do it, because ultimately science is going to triumph in this discussion.

During yesterday’s debate on the Upton-Inhofe bill (H.R. 910) to block climate pollution rules, Democrats who support clean energy manufacturing debunked conservative myths about the green economy. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) discussed their amendment to study the economic impact to American competitiveness of abolishing climate standards while the rest of the world wins the future. With the help of Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), they debunked the myths of a hapless Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Inslee decried the eagerness of the Republican Party to “shut down the government”:

It is deeply disappointing that our Republican colleagues are so willing, able, and apparently eager to shut down the government. This bill fundamentally shuts down the government. It shuts down the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to help lead us into a clean energy future. Why shut down the agency that can help develop these biofuels that we were just talking about? Why do they want to shut down the engine of innovation? Shutting down the government is not a solution. Shutting down the EPA is not a solution. Shutting down American innovation is not a solution.

Watch these excerpts from the debate:

Myth: China and India won’t impose limits on climate pollution. The fact is, as Doyle explained, China is moving forward both with taxes on energy-intensive industries and cap-and-trade systems to limit carbon pollution. China also pased ambitious clean energy mandates in 2005 that are driving its explosion of green manufacturing. India imposed a carbon tax last year, and its energy efficiency progress is outstripping the United States.

Myth: Climate standards kill the manufacturing economy. In fact, Germany, which has some of the most stringent climate and clean energy regulations on the planet, now has $41.2 billion of private investment in the new economy, leaving the United States in third place behind Germany and China. Germany is one of the world’s top economic powerhouses because its commitment to advanced manufacturing — demonstrating that industrial jobs don’t require a race to the bottom.

Myth: Cap-and-trade is a socialist-liberal-progressive plot to destroy the economy. As Ryan colorfully explained, Republican idol Ronald Reagan was the first president to implement cap-and-trade markets, successfully eliminating leaded gasoline and ozone-destroying pollutants. George H. W. Bush implemented a cap-and-trade market to stop acid rain pollution with supporters like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).

Kinzinger’s claim that the Upton-Inhofe bill, which amends the Clean Air Act, “doesn’t change the Clean Air Act at all,” doesn’t even rise to the level a debunkable myth. That’s just a lie.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party climate zombies that run the House of Representatives ignored the reality today, voting to pass H.R. 910 by a vote of 255 to 172, with 19 Democrats supporting the Republican effort to deny science and deny America a clean and healthy future.

Transcript: Read more

At a hearing with top US coal executives, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) agreed with a statement made by another coal CEO, Massey coal baron Don Blankenship. Last year — a few months before his Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, WV, exploded, killing 29 miners in the worst US coal disaster in 40 years — Blankenship said that the efforts by officials to get Massey Energy to improve mine safety are as “silly as global warming.” Inslee replied that “it’s actually very true“:

It’s actually very true. Mine safety is as silly as global warming — they’re both deadly serious and they’re not silly at all.

Watch it:

In his full opening remarks, Inslee noted that several headlines tell the story of the deadly dangers of our dependence on coal — a killer tsunami in Peru caused by a glacier breaking apart, the disappearance of yet more glaciers from Glacier National Park, and the Montcoal mine disaster. “If you decide to join with us to try to find a way to have a policy that will allow coal to be burned in a way that does not put massive amounts of CO2, that does not treat the atmosphere as a garbage dump, that in fact buries it underground,” Inslee said, “coal can have a future. If you don’t, it won’t.”

The House Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing was later interrupted by youth climate activists, who confronted the CEOs of Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Rio Tinto with lumps of dirty coal.

In an exclusive interview, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) explains that the U.S. Senate needs to “get over their fear” and cast a vote for clean energy job creation. Inslee, the co-chair of the House Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition and member of the House Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus, praised Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-VA) courageous vote in favor of climate legislation and counseled the U.S. Senate to follow his example. After explaining that the American people are strongly in favor of investment in clean energy jobs, Inslee said that “people who don’t want to move on this” should “just get over their fear“:

I would counsel people who don’t want to move on this to just get over their fear. Because frankly it’s fear that’s holding back. It’s people who are afraid that Americans aren’t smart enough to invent new technologies to deal with that. That we’re not bold enough like we used to be when we went to the moon with the original Apollo project.

Put away your fear, get a little dose of confidence, cast a vote that has trust in America’s entrepreneurial spirit, and we will beat this beast and America will grow economically. And I really believe this. So I hope the Senate gets the message.

Watch it:

Inslee sat down with the Wonk Room just before he addressed the Apollo Alliance-Center for American Progress “Picking A Winner: How to Make the U.S. a Leader in the Clean Energy Economy” conference, in which luminaries from the labor, business, and political world discussed what American clean-energy industrial policy should look like.

The lack of trust in American ingenuity is leading senators to want to water down and weaken climate legislation now being constructed by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Dozens of senators are pushing for less ambitious targets, a smaller clean-energy market, and tremendous subsidies for the existing and antiquated energy infrastructure of nuclear, coal, and oil. Instead of being trapped by fear, the Senate should indeed get a “dose of confidence” and unleash the future.

Transcript: Read more

Today, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) rebuked the authors of SuperFreakonomics for participating in a “continuing effort to deceive the American public” on the science of climate change. During an investigative hearing on forged letters sent by the coal industry to oppose climate action, Inslee condemned the industry’s effort to “hoodwink, defraud, and deceive the American public now to cover up the toxicity to the world environment” of global warming pollution. Inslee then turned to Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, criticizing them for “absolute deception” in their work on global warming:

The second thing I want to note is this is not the only continuing effort to deceive the American public. I want to note a book called Freakonomics, or SuperFreakonomics, that some authors wrote, that basically said or asserted we don’t have to control CO2, we’ll just pump sulfur dioxide up into the atmosphere and that will solve the problem. They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford who’s one of the predominant researchers in ocean acidification to suggest that Dr. Caldeira didn’t think we should control CO2. Which is an absolute deception. Dr. Caldeira I’ve spoken to personally. He’s told me we have to solve ocean acidification. You can’t solve ocean acidification without controlling CO2 and yet people are still trying to write books to deceive the American public. And we ought to blow the whistle on them, we’re blowing the whistle on one today, we’ll continue to do it, because ultimately science is going to triumph in this discussion.

Watch it:

Levitt and Dubner’s promotion of geoengineering as a “cheap and simple” alternative to carbon mitigation is in direct opposition to the views of Dr. Ken Caldeira, Paul Crutzen, and the world’s scientific community. Although Caldeira objected to the chapter and has since repeatedly said he was misrepresented in multiple ways, the SuperFreakonomics authors have continued their deception, joining the billion-dollar effort by fossil-fuel companies and the radical right to thwart action on climate change.

Transcript: Read more

At Netroots Nation 2009 in Pittsburgh, PA, Rep. Jay Insleee (D-WA) decried the “undemocratic” filibusters that allow a small minority of senators to thwart majority rule and President Obama’s clean energy reform agenda. In a panel on restoring U.S. environmental leadership, Inslee told the audience of progressive bloggers what he believes allows the monied advocates of the status quo to block progressive change:

The filibuster is so undemocratic it just defies defense. Particularly, as you said, it used to be this once-in-a-generation regional conflict issue that’s meant to protect the regions that has now prevented majority rule in this country. It’s a huge, insidious problem. I have to tell you in my conversations with senators, including in our party, I’ve gotten nowhere on this issue. When they get into that fine institution, they kind of like the idea one person can stop the entire country dead on its heels to keep a post office open in Schmuckbucket or wherever. I have to tell you, I’m very frustrated by it.

Watch it:

Inslee later warned that the “Exxons of the world” are going to “strangle this [effort] in its crib” with their millions of dollars if climate and clean energy activists don’t start fighting. Speakers at this and other Netroots Nation panels on climate legislation and clean energy reform discussed how conservative Democrats who fear clean energy reform hold the balance of power in the Senate. Last year, conservative Democrats such as Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) filibustered the Lieberman-Warner climate legislation, protecting local coal and oil interests. This year, armed with the filibuster, these senators hold the fate of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act in their hands.