Inslee shares green agenda with UK, shuns state Senate

Jay Inslee kept his climate policy plans—his cap-and-tax and fuel mandate scheme—shrouded in secrecy for quite sometime. Until this week, not even elected members of the Legislature or the State Treasurer knew with absolute certainty what Inslee was planning. Leaders of the state Senate and House received a letter from Inslee informing them of his plans the same morning he publically introduced his fuel mandate scheme.

Though Inslee chose not to disclose his plans for Washington State with elected representatives of the people, it doesn’t mean he left everyone out in the cold. It’s just that those he included are not Washington State residents… they are not even U.S. citizens.

Yesterday, our green governor received a letter from the United Kingdom’s Department of Energy and Climate Change congratulating him on his “ambitious legislative proposal” for a “carbon pollution market to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Washington State” that he would announce later that day.  The letter goes on to reference a “series of agreements” Inslee entered in with then-Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change Mr. Gregory Baker. The agreements, which Inslee signed without legislative consent, established a “close collaboration between the United Kingdom and Washington State on carbon pricing, advanced clean energy innovation, and low-carbon fuels.”

The conclusion of the letter reveals that, despite the “close collaboration” promise, the UK doesn’t know quite everything about Inslee’s plans. It reads, “I look forward to seeing the bill move successfully through your legislative process in the coming months and continuing our productive collaboration on these important issues.”

Clearly, our cousins across the pond have yet to realize that, a part from merely presenting his plans, Inslee took a significant step in bypassing the Legislature and forcing a fuel mandate on Washington State.

You can read the letter here.