Jay Inslee is building his 2020 campaign around a more pragmatic approach to tackling climate change [View all]

[DonViejo]

By James Hohmann
February 25 at 10:14 AM

THE BIG IDEA: Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D), who is poised to formally announce that he is running for president as early as this week, has held elected office since before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 29, was born.

Though he said it has felt lonely at times, the 68-year-old has been trying to do something about global warming for almost that entire time. He’s learned more from his failures than his successes. Now he hopes that Democratic primary voters come to value hard-earned wisdom.

Every 2020 candidate is talking extensively about climate change in his or her stump speech, but no one else has made it the central rationale for seeking the presidency. “I've got three grandkids, and I want them to experience what I have: salmon in the river, snow in the mountains, clean air and forests to hike in,” he said in an interview this weekend at the National Governors Association winter meeting. “It's all going to be degraded if we don't take this battle on.”

As a congressman, Inslee was a key player in the push for a cap-and-trade system 10 years ago. A bill passed in the House but stalled in the Senate, even though Democrats had a near-filibuster-proof majority.

Last March, Inslee fought hard but failed to enact the nation’s first carbon tax in Washington state. He couldn’t whip the votes to pass the bill through his state’s Democratic-controlled legislature. This past November, voters in his state rejected a ballot initiative to impose a carbon fee on fossil fuel emissions. A separate push he spearheaded to cap emissions was blocked in the courts.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2019/02/25/daily-202-jay-inslee-is-building-his-2020-campaign-around-a-more-pragmatic-approach-to-tackling-climate-change/5c72e37e1b326b71858c6c25/