Inslee signs climate change agreement, proves irrelevance… again

The state Legislature’s special session faces a deadline of Thursday, May 28. Unfortunately, lawmakers have not yet accomplished the people’s business, including passage of the next two-year operating budget and a comprehensive transportation package. As a result, the Legislature will be forced to enter a second special session. If lawmakers are unable to pass at least the budget by June 30, the state government may shut down (for the first time in state history) and all transportation projects will come to a stop.

Despite the pressing reality of a potential state government shutdown, Jay Inslee still refuses to put aside his partisan interests and work toward bringing the House and Senate together to do their constitutional duty. Instead, Inslee appears “laser focused” (borrowing from one of his go-to lines) on his extreme “green” agenda.

Last week, Inslee continued his relentless pursuit of implementing his extreme “green” policies in Washington State when he—without legislative consultation or approval—took it upon himself to join “leaders of 11 other states and provinces in the U.S., Mexico, Europe and Canada in signing an agreement that calls for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases to 80 to 95 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.”

The Seattle Times reports,“That’s a steeper reduction than envisioned in a 2008 Washington law, which said the state would cut its emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2050…

“In an appendix to the Under 2 MOU, the Inslee administration listed ongoing efforts, including the governor’s stalled cap-and-trade (tax) legislation, ending reliance on coal-generated electricity and a potential new clean-fuel standard.”

This pact isn’t the first time Inslee moved to act on his extreme agenda at the people’s expense (and without the input of the Legislature). In 2013, a Shift investigation revealed that Inslee promised his partners in the Pacific Coast Collaborative (PCC), which include the governors of California and Oregon, and the British Columbia Premier, that Washington would establish a fuel mandate by “administrative rule” in “Q1 2015.”

The agreement Inslee recently signed is “largely symbolic and does not legally bind Washington state to any specific actions.” But, it solidifies the fact that Inslee is incapable of understanding rejection. Lawmakers have already rejected his cap-and-tax scheme; Inslee refuses to accept that fact. Inslee failed to even gather enough support for his cap-and-tax scheme among members of his own party to pass it out of the Democrat-controlled state House.

Inslee excused his hyper-partisan decision—in a time where partisanship has caused gridlock in Olympia—by stating that the threat of climate change “requires bold action at every level, and many of these actions must be done by local and state governments.” Presumably, that’s Inslee’s attempt to combat critics who point to the fact that Washington State’s carbon emissions already rank eighth-lowest per capita in the nation and represent less than a quarter of 1 percent of the world’s total output. The reality being that, on a global scale, Inslee’s extreme green agenda for Washington state would not make a dent in combating climate change. But, it would deliver a significant blow to our state’s economy and working families’ pocketbooks.

Inslee’s new climate change pact reveals just how far he will go to push for his extreme green agenda. By injecting his polarizing agenda into an already partisan debate in Olympia, Inslee proved he values his extreme green agenda above the people’s interests.  He has, once again, proved his irrelevance as a leader by persisting to act like a “player on the field” rather than “referee-in-chief.”