Washington Governor on a Mission to Address Climate Change

Gov. Jay Inslee last week announced a plan that would call for enforcing existing law under the state's Clean Air Act.

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(TNS) — BREMERTON — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee contends his move to use the state's Clean Air Act to enforce emission standards will not harm Washington businesses. The governor was in Bremerton on Thursday to talk to the Kitsap Sun's editorial board and said that businesses threatening to leave the state over the emissions standards crackdown are bluffing.

"This is the same old snake oil that every industrial polluter has tried to sell Americans over the past 50 years," said Inslee, a Democrat from Bainbridge Island.

Inslee had asked the Legislature to enact a cap-and-trade program across the state. The idea generated limited enthusiasm, and the governor said it's unlikely he would ask the Legislature to consider it again until the next full session in 2017.

The plan Inslee announced this week would call for enforcing existing law under the state's Clean Air Act. He's given the job of coming up with specific rules to the state Department of Ecology.

State Sen. Jan Angel, R-Port Orchard, speaking by phone from a Council of State Governments conference in Vail, Colo., said it's too early to weigh in because the governor has yet to release details. "So far he's told us what it's not going to affect. He hasn't said if it will affect gas prices to our consumers and energy costs to our consumers."

"This is quite a task and I kind of feel sorry that staff people are going to be asked to come up with something," Angel said.

The governor, who wrote a 2008 book, "Apollo's Fire," about clean energy, has made addressing climate change a priority for the state.

Inslee pointed to different parts of the state to express the need for action to address climate change. He said half the salmon migrating up the Columbia River to spawn will die because the water is too warm, and that wildfires, a rough ski season and depleting shellfish populations are evidence that the state has to do something to stave off climate change.

He said technological innovation will drive improvements to industry to make them operate cleaner. The consequence of not acting, he said, would be dire. "We're going to have technological innovation or the state is going to fry."

Inslee said industries in areas of the country that have enacted similar standards have generally not moved out of states so they can pollute somewhere else. He rattled off a list of other states and countries that have employed similar measures and that Washington will learn from their mistakes and successes.

Within the next month, the governor will meet with Department of Ecology officials, he said, and that a first draft of a plan should be out by the end of the year. Inslee said the process will be transparent.

©2015 the KitsapSun (Bremerton, Wash.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 


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