July 17, 2025 • 56 mins
The current administration's environmental rollbacks are certainly disheartening, but there are folks like Former Governor Jay Inslee who are on a mission to defeat climate change.
Environmental advocate Jay Inslee joins Sophia to talk about the ongoing fight to protect our environment, the future of clean energy production, his entry into politics in his 30s, and how he was able to pass one of the strongest clean energy laws in the country. Plus, he shares personal experiences with climate-related disasters, the power of perseverance, and his work in progress. This is a chat full of hope that we could all use right about now!
To learn more about the power of clean energy and how you can get involved, head on over to climatepower.us(http://climatepower.us/)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, listeners, I'm just interjecting to let you know this
episode was recorded a few weeks ago, working with Governor
Insley around his incredibly busy schedule, and unfortunately, in the
time between recording and this episode airing, the devastating floods
have taken place in Texas, and we are just heartbroken
(00:22):
for everyone in Mystic and everyone affected, and it really
drives home an unfortunate point. The climate crisis is making
extreme weather more frequent and more severe, and the climate
doesn't care where you live, how you voted, or if
you believe in science. Science is here. We are particularly
(00:45):
heartbroken knowing that the current administration in the White House
has slashed funding and aid response from FEMA and other
organizations that were meant to support victims of the flooding
and that were meant to warr them in the hours
before the flood's hit. Slashing the National Weather Service is
(01:07):
in our mind, unforgivable, and we would just like to
ask that if you agree or you feel similarly passionate
about ensuring that people are safe, whether they're your next
door neighbors or your neighbors a few states away, please
look up relief efforts for those affected. Please look up
(01:28):
local organizations wherever you live that are working to defend climate,
because those are the groups that we need now more
than ever. And we are keeping everyone affected by this
flood and the hurricane season to come in all of
our thoughts here at work in progress. Thank you. Hello
(01:59):
whips Marty. Do we ever have a wonderful big brain
here with us today? I am so excited to be
joined by Jay Insley. He served as the twenty third
governor of Washington State from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty
five and has been one of our most effective leaders
(02:20):
on climate in America. He has proven that bold action
on climate change is also incredibly successful economic policy. He
made climate a central focus of his administration and pushed
for and then implemented incredible clean energy legislation, promoted electric
vehicle infrastructure, supported aggressive carbon reduction goals, and under his leadership,
(02:45):
Washington State passed one of the nation's strongest one hundred
percent clean energy laws, aiming to eliminate coal power and
transition to carbon free energy by twenty forty five. It
is so cool to hear him talk about how he
did it, how he organized folks across the political spectrum
and what it feels like when he meets with Washingtonians
(03:06):
who get zero dollar energy bills. Now, I think it's
probably why he's often called our gold standard for climate platforms,
and now post his governatorial tenure, he is working with
an amazing group that I am lucky enough to collaborate
with him on, called Climate Power. I got to be honest, guys,
(03:27):
I can feel a little doom and gloom about where
climate policy is going to go under today's leadership, and
this conversation with Governor Insley really put me back in
my hope. He reminded me of what we've accomplished and
what's to come, and that this fight is absolutely not over.
(03:48):
And I think that kind of inspiration is something we
all need right now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So let's dive in with Governor Jay Insley.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Good morning, how are you.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I'm well, thank you, Good morning, Well Governor. Normally, when
I sit down with guests, you know you've got really
exciting things going on, whether it's work projects or you know,
your incredible political tenure. I'm actually quite curious. I like
to go backwards before we really sit in the present,
(04:30):
and I wonder for you as a public servant and
an advocate. If you could go back in time and
encounter yourself at let's say ten, do you think you'd
see yourself reflected in that boy?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Not in the least, because I was strong, vigorous, was
my oyster. I'd never lost. I had not last lost
a campaign at that moment, and no, I was at ten.
I fell off my bicycle and broke my leg at
(05:13):
a very bad break, and really couldn't walk for several months.
So I started reading, and I remember reading a book.
I was going to be a nuclear physicist when I
was ten years of age, and I read a book
about nuclear energy and it was just fascinated by it. So
that was my ambition when I was ten, also to
learn to walk again, which was maybe a formative experience
(05:37):
because I had to go through several months of procedures
and it was a difficult time, but maybe an interesting
one because I started to read. Maybe that's what caused
my problems to make me go into politics.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Why do you think you were so passionate about science
as a young boy.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, my father was a biology teacher. That might have
something to do with it, and there was some and
I just remember there was a diagram about how fission worked,
about the splitting of the atom, and somehow that captured
my imagination. And I think that the wonderful thing about
youth is your imagination is untrammeled. It's unconstrained, that society
(06:20):
has not put any constraints on your imagination yet. So
last night I was sitting out on my deck out
here watching the sunset, and I asked my two year
old grandson, I said, how far away is the sun?
Is that a long ways away or is it close?
And he started like reaching out like he could try
to figure out how far away it was. And then
(06:43):
then he reached up to the sky and he says,
I'm going to pull the sky down and make it
a blanket. And he reached up to the blue sky
and it's like he's reaching up and he was going
to make the sky a blanket. You know, and you
get older, you wouldn't be able to share that imagination
because people would look at you a little strange. But
(07:04):
as a child, you're free to rome. And so that's
a wonderful thing about that part of life.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, free to imagine. Really, do you think that your
time spent reading while healing launched your interest in politics
or did that come.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Later, much much later. I really, I've always been interested
in public policy issues, but I did not see myself
being involved in politics as an official till my mid
to upper thirties. And you know, I was really interested
in my community affairs and kept abreast to what was
(07:42):
going on in the nation. But the way I got
involved in politics, that was a small town lawyer raising
Hay and three Pharoh boys out in the central part
of Washington State, and we tried to pass a school bond,
Trudy and I because it failed five times and they
were going to have to start double shifting our kids.
(08:04):
We thought that was nuts. So he said, let's go
build a new high school. And no one else with
town would try because they failed five times. Wow, Trudy
and I and another couple took it on. We got
it passed, and as soon as we passed it, though,
the chatterheads and the legislature changed the funding formula and
got our state funding in half. And I got outraged
about that, went over and started to raise hell An
(08:25):
Olympia in our capital. And eventually he said, well, if
I'm going to do this, I might as well be
in office. So I ran for office one in a
huge upset, very very republican area against the city mayor
and had no chance of winning. Was in the legislature
for two years and went to Congress. So that's my route,
which was not preordained, predestined, or planned, And here I am.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Sometimes I think that's the best way, though, you know,
people who see a problem and decide to run toward it.
When when you want to fix something to ensure a
better future for you, where kids and other people's kids,
you know, I think there's a I think there's such
disdain for our political system because we see so many
(09:09):
people who get into it for self interest and self enrichment.
And it's really a relief to be reminded that there
are folks who do this because they actually want to
serve the public. So it's nice to hear your story.
When when you look around the landscape of you know,
(09:31):
the world you work in. Why do you think younger
generations seem so politically averse? You know, what do you
think that is? Is it a is it a disillusionment
or is it that frustration with some of that kind
(09:52):
of grift that we see in the political system. Why
do you think so many young folks are hands off.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Young. I love young people. I'd like to be one
actually someday. But I don't think, you know, it's changed.
I think that you know, when you're nineteen twenty twenty one,
you just you still don't have your feet under you yet.
You're not connected to a particular community all the time,
and you just haven't been hit with a mortgage rate interest,
(10:24):
you know, raise, you haven't been hit by reality to
some degree in that regard. And there's a maturation project,
you know, in life. You know, I hate to say it,
but you do grow into things. And I don't think
it's I don't I actually don't know the numbers, but
I'm not sure it's changed dramatically. As far as voting
(10:45):
behavior for young people, it's always been lesser than people,
you know, over sixty. That's always been sort of the
reality of this situation. I will say that the young
voters that do vote and are active are so incredible,
well informed and scientifically literate and inspiring to those of
(11:06):
us who've been around for a few decades. So we
do everything humanly possible to get young people engaged because
they're the smartest generation and they have the most to lose, right,
So you know how many years have I got, I
don't know, but twenty year old's got several decades. And
if they lose the planet and a place to live
in a health system that takes care of them, they
(11:28):
get a lot more to lose. So we do everything
we do to encourage them. We do have a higher
voter participation of young and old in my state because
we have one of it's not the best voting system,
because we vote by mail, it's very easy. We have
same day registration. We make it really easy to vote.
And it just drives me nuts when I see these
(11:50):
other states, most of them run by the party that
I don't belong to, that you know, make people stand
in line for three hours to vote. It's just nuts.
So we do everything we can to increase voter participation,
and we have one of the highest rates in the nation.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Oh, I just love that. It is such an odd
thing to watch, you know, one of our two parties
really want to deny people the right to exercise their
vote and their voice. And you know, I will say
one of the things that not to say the two
(12:24):
parties are the same, but one of the things that
really frustrates me is that we couldn't get our party
better in line in the first two years of President
Biden's term. The fact that we have not reinstated the
John Lewis Voting Rights Act just makes me crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Look, I wish we'd solved all our problems where we
had a majority. But you got to understand, you up
against the filibuster in the Senate, yep. And that's one
of the frustrating things that when you're in the minority
party in either chamber, or even when you're in the
majority party, excuse me, you have to realize up against
philibuster to try to pass something like that. So unless
(13:06):
you're willing to blow up the filibuster. And I'm not
a fan of the filibuster, if it was me, I
probably would vote to end it, even though there's downsize
when here's the minority, obviously, but that prevents a lot
of progress, and it is you know, that is you know,
a cleavage between the two parties. So the Democratic Party
is for the last you know, one hundred and fifty years,
(13:28):
has stood for increasing participation in our community decision making,
and the other party not so much. They have willfully
in many occasions, tried to make it more difficult and
continue these efforts even today in a variety of ways,
with all kinds of tests and barriers, and you know,
requiring you to go produce your birth certificate when you
(13:49):
simply want to vote, which is a real headache, by
the way, because a lot of people, like nine to
fifteen percent people literally can't find their documents on occasions,
so it's a serious issue. It's very disappointing that both
parties can't be in favor of broadening the number of
people participate. To put a mildly, I'm disappointed in them, you.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And me both, sir. We'll be back in just a
minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. It's
interesting to me when I think about participation in the
system in general and expanding people's access to weigh in
(14:39):
on their future. It really makes me think a lot
about climate And you know, you are one of our
best leaders on climate change and on you know, bolstering
our power as a nation to deal with it and
to take care of our people. How did you come
(15:00):
to really focus on climate as a core issue for
yourself and what do you wish people better understood about it?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
In the first place, Well, I think there's something deep
like this. I'll try to give you a succinct answer
of a complex problem, but basically, I really believe that
your highest duty as a person is to those who
are going to come behind you, our children, our grandchildren,
our nieces, our nephews, our neighbors' kids. I think that's
(15:28):
our highest duty because keeping this chain, of this beautiful
chain of humanity going in a healthy way and giving
your kids what you've enjoyed is our highest duty. There's
a lot of other duties in life that you know
everybody'd want to ask your car in a longer vacation,
but that's in my book, in my value system, that's
(15:49):
the number one duty of any person in any realm,
no matter what you're doing. So it kind of stems
from that. And I have six grandchildren and it is
my deep, deep, purple passionate desire for them to have
what I've had, which is clean water, to be able
to drink and to swim in snow in the mountains,
(16:09):
to ski on air, to breathe it's not contaminated with
forest fire and smoke. And I want desperately, if I
can use that word, to give my grandchildren those gifts,
and they seem simple because I've always had them. But
they're not going to have those gifts of a blessed
and healthy life unless people of my age act to
(16:32):
build a clean energy economy. And this is a very
optimistic moment. I know that sounds very strange to say,
given what the Republicans are trying to do, but we
have such capability right now to do this, to use
our heads. Solar and wind energy is now cheaper than
coal power electricity about ninety four percent of the United States.
(16:53):
We're building hundreds of thousands of jobs with clean energy jobs.
If we just use our heads in common sense, we
can tame this beast and help our economy. So it's
both a moment to think of our grandchildren and a
moment to think of the economic benefits of clean energy
and to be frankly outraged at what the Republicans want
(17:16):
to do, which is to slow down this emerging rocket
that's taken off in clean energy. And it's just so
maddening as we speak that the Republicans are fashioning a
bill that will you know, have already cost maybe ninety
thousand jobs across the United States. I look at North Carolina.
(17:37):
You know, Senator Tillis has a vote on this, and
this bill is drafted, would cost something like forty five
thousand jobs in North Carolina over the next several decades. Wow,
it's billions of dollars of investment. And here's a kicker,
I think there's actually been an assessment of this could
result in utility bills going up three hundred dollars a
(17:59):
month for the people in Carolina because they no longer
will have access to the cheapest source of electricity, which
is electricity generated by renewable sources. So when they, out
of ideology do this, it's really quite maddening given the
pace of technology that is now available to us. So
(18:21):
it's a good moment for voices to be heard to
stand up for cheap energy, cheap electricity, thousands of jobs
and bonus, maybe our grandkids will have a place to
live and breathe because the issue.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
As well, well, that's just it. You know, when I
think about the cost of foregoing in our environment. You know,
dirty air, poisoned water, doesn't care how you voted, it's
going to affect all of us. And so it's certainly
(18:57):
an environmental issue. It's also a moral issue, it's a
human safety issue. And then, as you said, a financial one.
You know, to see that since we started really investing
in clean energy. You know, there's a statistic I read
recently that says three and a half million Americans have
saved more than eight billion dollars thanks to energy efficient
(19:21):
upgrades across the country and that if they continue, that
savings will increase to thirty eight billion dollars by twenty thirty.
So when you say that this bill, you know, this
this reconciliation plan that they want to push through, this
big awful bill, will destroy these things, I just think, well,
(19:44):
who would want to set thirty eight billion dollars on fire? Like,
imagine what we could do with that money for you know,
upgrades and infrastructure and kids. It's like, the the insanity
of having a dirt to your world and wasting money
just feels so ridiculous to me. So why do you
(20:09):
think they've worked so hard to make environmental issues, clean energy,
the literal evolution of an innovation in technology seem like
it's a partisan thing instead of just what we should
be doing as a global power.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Well, it's a very difficult question as to why people
who are literate could shut their eyes to both the
obvious threat and the obvious benefits of clean energy. It's
very difficult, but I'll give it my best shot to
see where this comes from. Number One, you ask who
these people are. These are people who are behold into
(20:48):
the fossil fuel industries. In the fossil fuel industries are
the most powerful corporations in world history. They're much more
powerful than the mediciese during the Italian period. So they're
answering to their their bosses, if you will, Who are
the people with the billions of dollars in an old,
unfortunately dirty industry that they are answering to. Those are
(21:11):
the people telling them how to vote. So that's number one.
Number two, they've got a cult going on right now
where they've got a guy in the White House that
somehow has a phobia about wind turbines. He says they
cause cancer, but we know they don't cause cancer, they
cause jobs, And he somehow he didn't want to see
a wind turbine within sight of his golf course and
(21:33):
decided he wanted to destroy this entire industry. It's nuts.
But number three, there is a deeper reason. If I
can and it requires a little more thought to think about.
It's fear. Fear is very powerful, and in their case,
they are afraid that we can't solve this problem. They're
afraid that we can't have a modern lifestyle by addressing
(21:58):
this problem, and so they shut their eyes. It. It's
like they want to put the monster in the in
the closet, you know. They get the monster in the closet.
They don't want to let it out because they're afraid
that will lose all of the modern benefits we have
of ev warmth in our house and food on the table,
and electronics at our disposal. And they don't see a
(22:18):
vision that can allow us to live that life. I do,
and so many thousands and millions, and the majority of
Americans do because we're now experiencing it and the joy
of this. It's the joy of clean energy. I remember
talking to this woman. We got solar panels for a house.
We have a thing called the Climate Commitment Act Washington State,
(22:40):
and it generates money so we can help Washingtonians get
access to clean energy. So she lives in top and
it she gets up at three o'clock every morning, goes
picks apples. Top finished Washington, and I met she and
her daughter right their front yard looking up at her
solar panels, and she said, I am the best day
of my month is the day I get my utility
(23:01):
bills because it's zero, says I. Just it's like a
gift every month. So we hear these stories of people
getting heat pumps who've lowered their costs and have much more,
you know, comfortable homes. And by the way, now heat
pump now gives you air conditioning too, and we now
need that in Seattle. We never needed air conditioning until now,
(23:21):
but now the heat domes are hitting us right and
it helps on air quality in so many ways. And
we've had a problem with air quality because of forest fires.
By the way, you mentioned financial impact on this. One
of the great things people don't think about are the
health costs associated with this. We have an epidemic of asthma.
We have kids with neighbors that they don't know anybody
(23:44):
doesn't have asthma, and it's getting worse because of forest
fire smoke and also because of the particular matter that
comes from burning fossil fuels. So the financial cost is
not just losing jobs. It's not just losing industries. It's
losing your health and the health costs have gone up
(24:05):
dramatically because of that. So there's so many ways this
makes sense. I've given you my best explanation as to
why this is. And it's very unique to America. You know,
you go to other continents. This is not a debate
between the liberal and conservative parties. You know, every country
has a liberal and conservative party, and there's unanimity that
(24:26):
we got to do something about this. And the rest
of the world. It's a very strange thing in the
United States and most bizarre because we're the most technologically
adept people in the world. You know, we're the ones
that went to the moon. Yeah, and so why this
has infected us is a little strange. But we need
to do something about it, which is get out there
and vote in March.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yes, sir. And you know what's also not lost on me.
There's the economic cost. There's obviously that the health costs.
There's also a cost to our national security, which you
were just referencing. You know, the United States is really
a leader on science and technology, and as we see
(25:10):
these threats to you know, our research institutions, funding grants,
all of these things It's not lost on me that
if we, you know, knock the wheels off the bus
of progress on environmental science, we're given it to other
countries like we will forfeit our future as technologists to
(25:35):
countries like China. And it's really important for us to
continue to lead on this from a democracy.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So this is this is where we shine. We do
two things really well, at least till now in America.
What is democracy, which we gave to the world in
the modern world, and to our scientific and innovative, entrepreneurial genius.
And both of there in an assault right now. We
know about the assaults on democracy, but the assault on science,
the assault on innovation, the assault on creativity based on technology.
(26:09):
You know, you're in a creative business, right and congratulations
on your career, But science is a creative business as well,
and by choking that creativity, this is really the economic
powerhouse of the United States. The economic growth of the
United States starts in laboratories, probably most, if not many,
(26:30):
if not most, in university laboratories. That's where these ideas
come from, where they start, that's where these startups come
out of. And right now that's choked off for reasons
that really are difficult to understand because those researchers now
are not coming to do research and projects. They are
going to Germany and England and China, and that's where
(26:53):
that research is going to go. Because these researchers, they
have a passion for doing it. They're going to find
a place to do it, and now we're telling them
they can't do it, and it's so insidious. One old story.
So we were when we marched last weekend. We had
a unique way of doing it. We did it on
our ferryboat. So on the ferry from Bambridge Island to Seattle.
(27:14):
We had two thousand people walking around the ferryboat deck
in protests. And I met a woman named Ella and
she is a freshman at Harvard. She is the pole
vault champion in the Ivy League and she's also a
medical device researcher at age like eighteen or nineteen, and
she's doing research on using mechanical energy instead of electrical
(27:40):
energy to power little devices that are put in your
body as a simpler way to do it. And she
has a research grant, which is incredible, the eighteen nineteen
year old person thinking about medical devices. Yeah wow. And
her Grant just got canceled. Can't do it this summer.
She was going to be trying to invent something that
can help people of my age get through the aging process,
(28:04):
and they canceled her. And that is so heartbreaking to
see the ambition in her eyes quashed. Now she's resilient,
she's going to go on. So I told her, look,
this may delay your work, but it's not going to
stop it. So go pull vault this summer and we'll
be back when Democrats get in charge of the House
(28:25):
of Representatives at least, so we're hoping that'll happen. By
the way, there's litigation on all of this too. Yes,
we're hopeful. We've got you know, a dozen injunctions already
against Trump's trying to stop this progress. So all is
not lost here. So we've still got hope.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a
word from our sponsors. Not that I'm any fan of
the person I'm about to mention, but even Elon Musk
is warning that America will not win the technology race
without clean energy production. We've got to have it. There's
(29:06):
no amount of oil drilling that'll be able to fulfill
our needs. There's no way to increase production to those levels,
and it doesn't make any sense, as we've said, because
it's more expensive.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Well listen, maybe Elong got one right recently, and that's
the one that choking off technological innovation is crazy in
the United States of America. And by the way, his
story is instructive too, because it also shows how governmental
investment early in the arc of progress in these technologies
(29:41):
is extremely important. His company got to start in part
because of some federal assistance that helped that company get going.
That makes sense because while you're competing with these incumbent
old technologies, getting a little start, a little seed money
really really helps. And it does so well. I started
a thing called the Clean Tech Center or a testbed
(30:04):
facility at the University of Washington several years ago and
met these two young guys that had invented a way
to increase the efficiency of a solar cell by kind
of concentrating the light, changing the frequency, counturing some of
the frequencies of light. That was like four years ago. Well,
now they've spun off their company, they've been acquired by
somebody else, And it started with this little seed money
(30:28):
from the university, from the State of Washington to start
this clean tech lab.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and I think it's really important to frame things
this way for people to understand, you know, how large
the sphere of effect for these industries really is and
that it affects you know, science, tech, budget, health, everything.
I think it can be a little hard to wrap
(30:53):
your head around it because it's such an enormous part
of our world. And one of the things I think,
and you can tell me if I'm correct here, one
of the things I think I'm seeing is, especially with
the extreme weather and the way things are changing, you know,
(31:19):
since Trump got back into office, I do feel like
I'm seeing people realize, you know, this is this is bad.
The fact that Noah is changing, that he wants to
absolutely you know, cut it down to basically be completely inefficient.
That signals to Americans that the president is essentially saying
(31:43):
you're on your own. You know. Disaster warnings have not
gone out on days they needed to since he took office,
and people have died. Can you kind of walk us
through a bit what Noah and the National Weather Service
do and why they are so important to folks across
(32:06):
the country.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I can, and I wish I wasn't so experienced at this,
but you know, I was governor for twelve years for
the most beautiful state in the country, and the most
beautiful country and the planet, most beautiful planet in the
Solar system, but it was injured so multiply by climate
related disasters. And I know so many people whose lives
(32:29):
have been interrupted and sometimes lost because of these climate
related disasters. And it's very personal with me because I've
seen what that trauma does when your house has been
burned down. I remember this couple in WINACTI standing just
in literally the ashes of their house, hugging each other,
just trying to support each other. It's such trauma when
(32:50):
you lose your house or your life. We had two
whole towns burned down in forest fires, and of course
our forest fires have almost doubled in the last several
decades because of heat. Because of heat and drought and dryness,
these forests are just tenders waiting to explode now across
the Western United States. There's no force on nature that
can really totally solved. We can manage our forests, we're
(33:13):
doing that, but you can't totally solve the problem when
they're so dry. So I've seen this personal and when
I've seen what Trump did, which was so callously indifferent,
it really does make my blood boil. This town called
mal didn't burned down several years ago in eastern Washington.
The whole town burned down. In fact, the fire engine
(33:33):
burned down in the fire station. The fire is moving
so quickly, and we asked, you know, the federal government
for help, and Trump says, no, I'm not going to help.
And when the Republican congresswoman said, why won't you help?
You know, this is a Republican district, and he said,
because I don't you know, I don't like the governor.
You know, he's not subservient to me, won't kiss my
(33:56):
ring often enough. So he refused assistance to those families
whose homes were in ashes, whose lives were severely compromised.
And because the whole town, when you have the whole
town burned down, you just don't have something to go
back to. There's no city hall, there's no fire station,
there's no medical clinic. And so that is so devastating
to a community. And to me, how I look at
(34:20):
this problem, when I think about that couple standing in
the ruins of their home, pleading with the president who
was hired to help them turn his back on them. Literally,
he's turning his back on these people their most desperate
moment where he said that we're not going to help
these people. I can't think of a more scandalous, abusive
(34:40):
thing for a public official to do. Look, we're not
asking to go to the moon or cure cancer by
next Monday. We're simply asking him to help these people
who are in stress. And it's fires here, but it's
floods too. I remember talking to another family. They got
flooded out in the northern part to the state of Washington,
(35:02):
and they took about a year to rebuild their home.
They had a party celebrating rebuilding their home, and a
week later, another flood came through and wiped out their
home again. And to turn your back on these people
is just such an outrage, and we need to do
something about it, which clearly is to vote and go
(35:23):
help people that can get into office to stop this madness.
Now he talks about it as waste, fraud, and abuse.
But I'll tell you what, when you see a family
standing in those ashes and they ask you for a
little bit of food to eat for a few weeks
and a little bit of rental assistance so they can
go to apartment for a few weeks while to figure
out where're going to be, and maybe some assistance with
(35:46):
jobs because you've lost your jobs because the economy has
been destroyed in your local community. That ain't waste, fraud
and abuse. That's human compassion. It's responsibility of what we
hire the federal government to do. So I'm hopeful this
will turn this around.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
I sure hope so too. I think it's really important
to remind people that programs like this, that's your ROI
for your investment in this country, for your being a citizen,
for your paying taxes and building an economy. You know,
if you don't believe in social safety nets, then go
(36:26):
live somewhere else, go live off the grid, start your
own country and be one of one.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
And we're all at risk here too, no matter where
you live, everybody's at risk from climate related disasters. They're
so omnipresent, and they're almost every week, and it hits
all of us Democrats and Democrat Republicans alike. In fact,
that little talent I told you about Malden, Washington, when
I went back, you know, they voted for Donald Trump,
like by seventy percent. These are communities who are wildly
(36:54):
supportive of him, and then he turns his back on him.
So and unfortunately, this is something we've got to wrap
our heads around. This is going to get worse before
it gets better. The frequency of fires, a frequency of floods,
the frequency of extreme weather events, just rainstorms. We've had
rainstorms that destroyed Mountain International Park several years ago. You know,
(37:15):
it doesn't dribble that we're now having these downpourds. This
is going to increase in the near term because we
didn't start this effort twenty years ago like we should have.
So FEMA and the federal government is going to be
even more important. And it's important that the federal government
get involved because when you have a local community that's hurt,
(37:35):
you need to get these assets from multiple states helping out.
And I've seen this people come from and bless the
Red Cross, who has help, but they can't carry the
whole ball here, No to help people with this.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Assistance well, and I think that's that's something people need
to remember, is that you know, FEMA exists so that
we can take care of each other. And so to
watch the President's suh, you know, thirty percent of the
staff and threaten to eliminate the agency altogether and derail
our hurricane preparation. And you know, have the head of
(38:10):
Noah that he appointed say he didn't even know there
was a hurricane season. I spent ten years in North Carolina.
I know a lot about hurricane season, and it was
really painful for me, despite the fact that I don't
live there anymore, to watch the President deny aid to
the folks who were affected by Hurricane Helene in that state.
It was hard to watch them deny aid to the
(38:33):
tornado survivors in Arkansas. And as you said, a lot
of those folks are his voters. And the whole point
I believe in being a leader is to be a
leader for everyone. And the bottom line is here, and
you mentioned this earlier. You know, there's a lot of
people who make a lot of money on an old system.
And while Trump is currently turbo charging the climate crisis
(38:59):
to increased profits for all his oil and gas buddies, Americans,
you know, red states and blue are paying the price.
And so I think the first step is this moment, right,
it's the informed conversation it's making sure people have the facts.
And then, as you said, it's organizing, and it's getting
(39:21):
out and voting and making sure that all of us
are able to say, hey, this isn't working, This isn't
working for anybody, so we've got to do something differently.
I know that can be hard, probably for some of
the folks at home, because you know, we've got a
year and a half till the midterms. It's scary to
(39:42):
think that we have to keep fighting before we might
see a shift. So to try to inject a little
hope here, I'm curious, as you are an expert in
the space, what you think are some of the most
promising things coming down the pipeline in terms of clean
(40:02):
energy technologies and the job creation that comes out of
those innovative spaces.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Well, first off, I know this sounds nuts. We're at
the moment, we're at the trough of the wave. We've
got our climate DENI and President He's trying to creator
all the federal assistance we're getting. But I am super
optimistic or ability to solve this problem. And the reason
is as I'm surrounded by people in my state who
have emerging technologies that can solve this problem if we
(40:32):
simply allow them a little bit of room to run.
Just give you real quick rundown some of the things
going on in my state. So my state, there are
two companies, Celan Group fourteen. They've invented a new way
to use a silicon anode battery that can increase the
range of your car twenty or thirty percent and charge
it much more quickly. They have manufacturing plants now under construction.
(40:56):
These are real companies making real products that can have
a quantum leap forward in the range of your electric car.
Right around the corner, literally like a mile from those
two companies is a company called twelve that's making jet
fuel out of carbon dioxide and water with no waste products,
so that when you find your jet there's no you
(41:18):
don't have a carbon footprint. If you will, you're using
carbon free fuel. And they're building their manufacturing plant. Right
up the river. About oh twenty miles from them, is
a company's going to build the first fusion energy plant
in the United States, a fifty megawatt production plant using fusion,
(41:39):
not fission. This is not fission that we know as
the old nuclear power. This is a process of fusing
atoms rather than splitting them. Goes back to that book
I read when I was ten that actually they may
begin construction on in the next twelve months. Wow, you've
got companies that are improving the performance of solar energy.
(42:01):
We have the first marine battery manufacturing plant in Bellingham, Washington,
and we're going to be building electric ferries. So now
you won't be breathing in that smoke coming out of
a smokestack of your fairies anymore. They're all electric and
I've ridden them on them in Norway. They work. I've
seen the biggest one in the world is now in Uruguay.
So the wind turbine industry is continuing to be more
(42:22):
productive building solar like crazy. So everywhere I turn around
there's an entrepreneur and skilled working people building news services
and products that contain this piece and reduces our cost
of electricity. I mean, think about this. What a blessing
to have infinite energy fallen on our shoulders that we
(42:45):
can turn into electricity to run whatever we want to
run with no pollution. We don't have to dig a
hole in the ground. It falls. It's delivered free from
nine million miles away from the sun and it falls
right on us. I mean, this is a real blessing. Yeah,
and now to see the continued improvement of those things
(43:06):
is thrilling to me. But we want to accelerate the
pace of that development, not retarded, and we can do
that if we just don't go backwards in some of
these policies.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I mean, that does feel really exciting. And now a
word from our sponsors who make this show possible. When
you think about, for example, you know, you talk about
(43:42):
these technologies, my brain starts to run wild thinking about
what it would be like if suddenly all these airplanes
flying around the planet every day had no carbon footprint,
if every water vessel you know, didn't need to use
gas fuel. It makes me think about the early days
(44:02):
when COVID first began and granted terrifying time, but when
everything really shut down and we started to see how
quickly the planet could rebound if a lot of our
pollutants ceased to be pumped into our air every day.
What do you think or have you heard any of
(44:24):
these scientists talk about what sort of healing we would
see for the planet if entire industries did transform like this.
Are they modeling any of that yet.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Well, I think that first off, the planet does feal
quite quickly, and it astounds me how fast an ecosystem
can't get restored. We had one of the largest dam
removal projects, the Law Dam. It was really of no
use anymore to anyone. It was just obsolete. And the
(44:57):
Ola River and the Olympic National Park and it used
to have this you know, prodigious salmon run and it
was removed. It was really joyous occasion when that happened,
and just within you know, months, salmon were coming back
on that river. It's really astounding to see how salmon
will recover. A little Piper's Creek where I grew up
(45:18):
in the north side of in a suburban area of Seattle,
which didn't have any salmon when I you know, at
least when I was a teenager, and we worked to
restore the community. It was really community led effort, little
help in the state, I think. To restore the habitat,
you know, you just make it so it spreads out,
doesn't run so fast, you put woody debris in it.
(45:39):
Now you got this prodigious salmon run coming back, and
the kids go back and so it's a huge community celebration.
When you see that life really be restored. So we
know that that things do come back. But there are
some difficult realities that we have to face that auto
not make us afraid of progress, but to inspire more
(46:00):
rapid progress. And there are some systemic problems that we
have that are going to be devilius for quite some time,
principally water temperature. So our water temperature has increased so
much in the state of Washington that salmon literally can't
get up some of our rivers. They can't survive. So
(46:20):
we had a really great dam and run go up
to Columbia River, hundreds of miles up the Clembia River,
but stopped when they got to the mouth of the
in Okanahan County because water is too hot. It couldn't
keep going to spawn. Actually we got lucky they finally
got up there because we got a break in the weather.
But this water temperature is your issue, is one that
(46:43):
is difficult. That's why we need to double our efforts
to improve habitat, for instance, to allow mother nature to
do everything so that she can do. And we want
to get back to work and give her a hand.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
We sure do, and you know it is beautiful to
watch it. I got to go and visit some of
the scientists working at Vermeo in New Mexico a few
years ago, and just seeing the restoration of you know,
the cutthroat trout and the bison there. It's absolutely incredible
to watch ecology heal. And it makes me think a
(47:20):
lot about your legacy. You know, during your time as
governor Washington, with your leadership past one of the strongest
clean energy laws in the country, so you know this
stuff is possible. What lessons did you learn about what
it actually takes to rally folks to get ambitious climate
(47:42):
policy passed.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Well, if I can share it, thank you for the
kudos of our state, because our policies are the best
in the nation. And that's why. It's one of the
reasons we had such economic success, because we're driving all
these new companies to come here and grow, and it's
one of the reasons we have such a dynamic economy.
I'll mention several things. One perseverance, Just say, look, you
(48:06):
butt your head against a brick wall for years and
years and years, and then you finally break through it.
So when I became governor in twenty thirteen, we had
a Republican Senate and they refused to assist in any
way to deal with anything and climate. That was very
frustrating to me. You know, I wanted to have a
bipartisan effort, so I started a bipartisan commission with Republican
(48:31):
senators on it, but they basically just refused to participate.
So then we finally got a Democratic majority in our legislature,
but I still had a couple of kind of folks
that hadn't got the memo, even on the Democratic side,
So I had to work for several years to get
those last two votes, and there were some changes in
the legislature. And what I found is frequently it is
(48:54):
much easier to change the people sitting in the seats
than to change their minds. So we had some changes
and who's sitting in the seats, And on year six
or seven of my governor's term, we finally got the
capstone of our multiple faceted effort, which is a capin
invest system which generates three billion dollars by any m
(49:17):
that we then turn around and get people with heat
pumps and electric school buses and air filtration systems and
everything else. Now we've done other things. We had one
hundred percent clean energy grid requirement. We have the best
building efficiency standards in the United States. We don't waste energy.
We have a low carbon fuel standard which basically gives
people cleaner fuels in multiple ways. We have a Climate
(49:41):
Core to teach kids the science of climate change. So
we've done a lot, but the big most effective tool
is this cap and invest system, and that came in
in twenty nineteen, in year six or seven that we
then now have impact. And here's the really cherry on
the top, the fossil fuel. You know, billionaires didn't like that,
(50:03):
so they came in and tried to repeal this law,
and they put it on the ballot and we had
a knockdown, drag out fight, and the wise citizens of
the state of Washington defeated them sixty two to thirty eight.
I mean, that is the biggest landslide washing state history.
Because Washingtonians understood the economic benefits, the job benefits, the
(50:27):
health benefits, and it wasn't even necessary to talk about
rising sea levels alike, because they understood the first order
of benefits that if you got a heat pump, if
you get solar and wind, and it's cheaper if your
kids don't have to breathe forest fire smoke. Our kids
had to couldn't go outside for days at a time
(50:48):
two summers ago because of forest fire smoke. So people
understood the first order of magnitude and funally gave us
a blue Riven seal of approval. I think that you
give confidence to politicians going forward, looking at the experience
in Washington State. We bring companies here instead of them
(51:09):
going somewhere else because we have this entrepreneurial culture exactly.
We invest in them and then people support it. So
people said this is not a winner politically, they're just
dead wrong. I've seen it firstand first off, I got
elected governor running on this. Then we won sixty two
thirty eight. Going away, this is a winning issue if
(51:30):
it's properly framed and you talk about it in the
right way.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Well, it turns out if you tell people the truth
that helps. It helps. So, now that you are out
of office for the last several months, and obviously I
know you're spending a lot of time with your grandkids
and you're still so incredibly involved, when you look forward,
(51:57):
what feels like your area of most excited focus, what
feels like your work in progress for what comes next.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Well, I'm still engaged in this fight and in a
variety of ways. I'm working with a group called Climate Power.
Climate Power has been in a very effective group to
help communicate the truth. As you said, just you know
the truth, use the truth. It's so simple, as Mark
Twain said, so easy. So I'm working with them on
communication to let people know about the power of clean
(52:28):
energy across the country and multiple forums. I'm working on
an effort to help people who have losses due to
forest fires have some system to help them. So I'm
quite active. I'm active in trying to raise my voice
on ferryboats, marching with people and letting them to know
how important that is to help people on the electoral
(52:51):
cycle as well. So I'm quite engaged in this effort,
and I am as cited. I know it's easy to
kind of get down in the situation and we're in,
but I just believe we're going to succeed in this.
I don't believe humans ultimately will be the cause of
their own destruction. I don't believe that. I believe that
we will rescue ourselves. It's been delayed by this electoral cycle,
(53:14):
but we've been delayed before I went through the Bush era.
You know, I went through the second Bush presidency where
he started a war in Iraq, and you know a
lot of these wars are associated with access to oil,
and he slowed down our effort. You know, he wanted
to do cold based stuff that just didn't pencil out
at all, and his presidency slowed us down by years.
(53:36):
But we came back during the Obama era. We pasted
things going forward. We all became this close to passing
a cap and invest bill. Then we got slowed down
again by Trump. But then we got the Biden presidency
where there's you know, a miracle of the Inflation Reduction
Act and the tax cuts, which are now threatened again
got passed, and we've seen spectacular economic growth. Some of
(54:00):
these companies that I told you about Washington, they got
a little benefit to get going because of those tax benefits,
and right now they're under threat again. You know, we
talked about Senator Tillis. He could cause forty five thousand
job losses and in state over the next couple of
decades if he votes to get rid of these tax
cuts or to make them less accessible to people. Now
(54:22):
I've heard he's trying to make it. He's trying to
sweeten the deal a little bit. You know, he's trying
to make it that you don't destroy the tax cuts
till a little later. Well, that's like saying, hey, give
me a benefit because I've delayed your hanging by a
couple of weeks. That's not really an answer to this problem.
We need Republicans to stand up and preserve this. My
point is progress is not linear. Yes, you're going up
(54:46):
and then you're stable. You're going up, then you're stable
a step by step. Martin Luther King was right, said,
you know, the arc of the moral universe is long, Yes,
but it bends towards justice, and it is long. This
battle is long, and this is a moment of we
got some headwinds, but the winds are going to change.
(55:06):
We're going to be back in business and the genius
that is in our country is going to be unleashed again.
And we're going to get better, cheaper energy and healthier kids. Yes,
and less climate change. And I believe that's going to happen.
I wish what happened.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yesterday, you and me both, Governor, But I've.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Learned that the power perseverance the most important thing in
this battle.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Indeed, I love that the power of perseverance is a
good one to focus on. Thank you so much for
joining us today, you know, to give us a window
into what you know and what we all can do.
I hope to see you at a march, either on
the water or on the land very soon.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
Well, I will tell people, as we've bed to do,
whatever you do right now has value. You have agency,
people have power and authority already right now. And anything
you do of contacting your legislators, being out on the
sidewalks pieceively, talking to your cranky uncle about why this
is a good idea, all of those things mount up.
(56:14):
Everybody can put a brick in the wall here. So
whatever you're doing out there, keep it up. We're going
to win this battle, and I will be there with you.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
I can't wait. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
Thank you,
Hey, listeners, I'm just interjecting to let you know this
episode was recorded a few weeks ago, working with Governor
Insley around his incredibly busy schedule, and unfortunately, in the
time between recording and this episode airing, the devastating floods
have taken place in Texas, and we are just heartbroken
(00:22):
for everyone in Mystic and everyone affected, and it really
drives home an unfortunate point. The climate crisis is making
extreme weather more frequent and more severe, and the climate
doesn't care where you live, how you voted, or if
you believe in science. Science is here. We are particularly
(00:45):
heartbroken knowing that the current administration in the White House
has slashed funding and aid response from FEMA and other
organizations that were meant to support victims of the flooding
and that were meant to warr them in the hours
before the flood's hit. Slashing the National Weather Service is
(01:07):
in our mind, unforgivable, and we would just like to
ask that if you agree or you feel similarly passionate
about ensuring that people are safe, whether they're your next
door neighbors or your neighbors a few states away, please
look up relief efforts for those affected. Please look up
(01:28):
local organizations wherever you live that are working to defend climate,
because those are the groups that we need now more
than ever. And we are keeping everyone affected by this
flood and the hurricane season to come in all of
our thoughts here at work in progress. Thank you. Hello
(01:59):
whips Marty. Do we ever have a wonderful big brain
here with us today? I am so excited to be
joined by Jay Insley. He served as the twenty third
governor of Washington State from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty
five and has been one of our most effective leaders
(02:20):
on climate in America. He has proven that bold action
on climate change is also incredibly successful economic policy. He
made climate a central focus of his administration and pushed
for and then implemented incredible clean energy legislation, promoted electric
vehicle infrastructure, supported aggressive carbon reduction goals, and under his leadership,
(02:45):
Washington State passed one of the nation's strongest one hundred
percent clean energy laws, aiming to eliminate coal power and
transition to carbon free energy by twenty forty five. It
is so cool to hear him talk about how he
did it, how he organized folks across the political spectrum
and what it feels like when he meets with Washingtonians
(03:06):
who get zero dollar energy bills. Now, I think it's
probably why he's often called our gold standard for climate platforms,
and now post his governatorial tenure, he is working with
an amazing group that I am lucky enough to collaborate
with him on, called Climate Power. I got to be honest, guys,
(03:27):
I can feel a little doom and gloom about where
climate policy is going to go under today's leadership, and
this conversation with Governor Insley really put me back in
my hope. He reminded me of what we've accomplished and
what's to come, and that this fight is absolutely not over.
(03:48):
And I think that kind of inspiration is something we
all need right now.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So let's dive in with Governor Jay Insley.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Good morning, how are you.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I'm well, thank you, Good morning, Well Governor. Normally, when
I sit down with guests, you know you've got really
exciting things going on, whether it's work projects or you know,
your incredible political tenure. I'm actually quite curious. I like
to go backwards before we really sit in the present,
(04:30):
and I wonder for you as a public servant and
an advocate. If you could go back in time and
encounter yourself at let's say ten, do you think you'd
see yourself reflected in that boy?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Not in the least, because I was strong, vigorous, was
my oyster. I'd never lost. I had not last lost
a campaign at that moment, and no, I was at ten.
I fell off my bicycle and broke my leg at
(05:13):
a very bad break, and really couldn't walk for several months.
So I started reading, and I remember reading a book.
I was going to be a nuclear physicist when I
was ten years of age, and I read a book
about nuclear energy and it was just fascinated by it. So
that was my ambition when I was ten, also to
learn to walk again, which was maybe a formative experience
(05:37):
because I had to go through several months of procedures
and it was a difficult time, but maybe an interesting
one because I started to read. Maybe that's what caused
my problems to make me go into politics.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Why do you think you were so passionate about science
as a young boy.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, my father was a biology teacher. That might have
something to do with it, and there was some and
I just remember there was a diagram about how fission worked,
about the splitting of the atom, and somehow that captured
my imagination. And I think that the wonderful thing about
youth is your imagination is untrammeled. It's unconstrained, that society
(06:20):
has not put any constraints on your imagination yet. So
last night I was sitting out on my deck out
here watching the sunset, and I asked my two year
old grandson, I said, how far away is the sun?
Is that a long ways away or is it close?
And he started like reaching out like he could try
to figure out how far away it was. And then
(06:43):
then he reached up to the sky and he says,
I'm going to pull the sky down and make it
a blanket. And he reached up to the blue sky
and it's like he's reaching up and he was going
to make the sky a blanket. You know, and you
get older, you wouldn't be able to share that imagination
because people would look at you a little strange. But
(07:04):
as a child, you're free to rome. And so that's
a wonderful thing about that part of life.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Yeah, free to imagine. Really, do you think that your
time spent reading while healing launched your interest in politics
or did that come.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Later, much much later. I really, I've always been interested
in public policy issues, but I did not see myself
being involved in politics as an official till my mid
to upper thirties. And you know, I was really interested
in my community affairs and kept abreast to what was
(07:42):
going on in the nation. But the way I got
involved in politics, that was a small town lawyer raising
Hay and three Pharoh boys out in the central part
of Washington State, and we tried to pass a school bond,
Trudy and I because it failed five times and they
were going to have to start double shifting our kids.
(08:04):
We thought that was nuts. So he said, let's go
build a new high school. And no one else with
town would try because they failed five times. Wow, Trudy
and I and another couple took it on. We got
it passed, and as soon as we passed it, though,
the chatterheads and the legislature changed the funding formula and
got our state funding in half. And I got outraged
about that, went over and started to raise hell An
(08:25):
Olympia in our capital. And eventually he said, well, if
I'm going to do this, I might as well be
in office. So I ran for office one in a
huge upset, very very republican area against the city mayor
and had no chance of winning. Was in the legislature
for two years and went to Congress. So that's my route,
which was not preordained, predestined, or planned, And here I am.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Sometimes I think that's the best way, though, you know,
people who see a problem and decide to run toward it.
When when you want to fix something to ensure a
better future for you, where kids and other people's kids,
you know, I think there's a I think there's such
disdain for our political system because we see so many
(09:09):
people who get into it for self interest and self enrichment.
And it's really a relief to be reminded that there
are folks who do this because they actually want to
serve the public. So it's nice to hear your story.
When when you look around the landscape of you know,
(09:31):
the world you work in. Why do you think younger
generations seem so politically averse? You know, what do you
think that is? Is it a is it a disillusionment
or is it that frustration with some of that kind
(09:52):
of grift that we see in the political system. Why
do you think so many young folks are hands off.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Young. I love young people. I'd like to be one
actually someday. But I don't think, you know, it's changed.
I think that you know, when you're nineteen twenty twenty one,
you just you still don't have your feet under you yet.
You're not connected to a particular community all the time,
and you just haven't been hit with a mortgage rate interest,
(10:24):
you know, raise, you haven't been hit by reality to
some degree in that regard. And there's a maturation project,
you know, in life. You know, I hate to say it,
but you do grow into things. And I don't think
it's I don't I actually don't know the numbers, but
I'm not sure it's changed dramatically. As far as voting
(10:45):
behavior for young people, it's always been lesser than people,
you know, over sixty. That's always been sort of the
reality of this situation. I will say that the young
voters that do vote and are active are so incredible,
well informed and scientifically literate and inspiring to those of
(11:06):
us who've been around for a few decades. So we
do everything humanly possible to get young people engaged because
they're the smartest generation and they have the most to lose, right,
So you know how many years have I got, I
don't know, but twenty year old's got several decades. And
if they lose the planet and a place to live
in a health system that takes care of them, they
(11:28):
get a lot more to lose. So we do everything
we do to encourage them. We do have a higher
voter participation of young and old in my state because
we have one of it's not the best voting system,
because we vote by mail, it's very easy. We have
same day registration. We make it really easy to vote.
And it just drives me nuts when I see these
(11:50):
other states, most of them run by the party that
I don't belong to, that you know, make people stand
in line for three hours to vote. It's just nuts.
So we do everything we can to increase voter participation,
and we have one of the highest rates in the nation.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Oh, I just love that. It is such an odd
thing to watch, you know, one of our two parties
really want to deny people the right to exercise their
vote and their voice. And you know, I will say
one of the things that not to say the two
(12:24):
parties are the same, but one of the things that
really frustrates me is that we couldn't get our party
better in line in the first two years of President
Biden's term. The fact that we have not reinstated the
John Lewis Voting Rights Act just makes me crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Look, I wish we'd solved all our problems where we
had a majority. But you got to understand, you up
against the filibuster in the Senate, yep. And that's one
of the frustrating things that when you're in the minority
party in either chamber, or even when you're in the
majority party, excuse me, you have to realize up against
philibuster to try to pass something like that. So unless
(13:06):
you're willing to blow up the filibuster. And I'm not
a fan of the filibuster, if it was me, I
probably would vote to end it, even though there's downsize
when here's the minority, obviously, but that prevents a lot
of progress, and it is you know, that is you know,
a cleavage between the two parties. So the Democratic Party
is for the last you know, one hundred and fifty years,
(13:28):
has stood for increasing participation in our community decision making,
and the other party not so much. They have willfully
in many occasions, tried to make it more difficult and
continue these efforts even today in a variety of ways,
with all kinds of tests and barriers, and you know,
requiring you to go produce your birth certificate when you
(13:49):
simply want to vote, which is a real headache, by
the way, because a lot of people, like nine to
fifteen percent people literally can't find their documents on occasions,
so it's a serious issue. It's very disappointing that both
parties can't be in favor of broadening the number of
people participate. To put a mildly, I'm disappointed in them, you.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And me both, sir. We'll be back in just a
minute after a few words from our favorite sponsors. It's
interesting to me when I think about participation in the
system in general and expanding people's access to weigh in
(14:39):
on their future. It really makes me think a lot
about climate And you know, you are one of our
best leaders on climate change and on you know, bolstering
our power as a nation to deal with it and
to take care of our people. How did you come
(15:00):
to really focus on climate as a core issue for
yourself and what do you wish people better understood about it?
Speaker 3 (15:07):
In the first place, Well, I think there's something deep
like this. I'll try to give you a succinct answer
of a complex problem, but basically, I really believe that
your highest duty as a person is to those who
are going to come behind you, our children, our grandchildren,
our nieces, our nephews, our neighbors' kids. I think that's
(15:28):
our highest duty because keeping this chain, of this beautiful
chain of humanity going in a healthy way and giving
your kids what you've enjoyed is our highest duty. There's
a lot of other duties in life that you know
everybody'd want to ask your car in a longer vacation,
but that's in my book, in my value system, that's
(15:49):
the number one duty of any person in any realm,
no matter what you're doing. So it kind of stems
from that. And I have six grandchildren and it is
my deep, deep, purple passionate desire for them to have
what I've had, which is clean water, to be able
to drink and to swim in snow in the mountains,
(16:09):
to ski on air, to breathe it's not contaminated with
forest fire and smoke. And I want desperately, if I
can use that word, to give my grandchildren those gifts,
and they seem simple because I've always had them. But
they're not going to have those gifts of a blessed
and healthy life unless people of my age act to
(16:32):
build a clean energy economy. And this is a very
optimistic moment. I know that sounds very strange to say,
given what the Republicans are trying to do, but we
have such capability right now to do this, to use
our heads. Solar and wind energy is now cheaper than
coal power electricity about ninety four percent of the United States.
(16:53):
We're building hundreds of thousands of jobs with clean energy jobs.
If we just use our heads in common sense, we
can tame this beast and help our economy. So it's
both a moment to think of our grandchildren and a
moment to think of the economic benefits of clean energy
and to be frankly outraged at what the Republicans want
(17:16):
to do, which is to slow down this emerging rocket
that's taken off in clean energy. And it's just so
maddening as we speak that the Republicans are fashioning a
bill that will you know, have already cost maybe ninety
thousand jobs across the United States. I look at North Carolina.
(17:37):
You know, Senator Tillis has a vote on this, and
this bill is drafted, would cost something like forty five
thousand jobs in North Carolina over the next several decades. Wow,
it's billions of dollars of investment. And here's a kicker,
I think there's actually been an assessment of this could
result in utility bills going up three hundred dollars a
(17:59):
month for the people in Carolina because they no longer
will have access to the cheapest source of electricity, which
is electricity generated by renewable sources. So when they, out
of ideology do this, it's really quite maddening given the
pace of technology that is now available to us. So
(18:21):
it's a good moment for voices to be heard to
stand up for cheap energy, cheap electricity, thousands of jobs
and bonus, maybe our grandkids will have a place to
live and breathe because the issue.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
As well, well, that's just it. You know, when I
think about the cost of foregoing in our environment. You know,
dirty air, poisoned water, doesn't care how you voted, it's
going to affect all of us. And so it's certainly
(18:57):
an environmental issue. It's also a moral issue, it's a
human safety issue. And then, as you said, a financial one.
You know, to see that since we started really investing
in clean energy. You know, there's a statistic I read
recently that says three and a half million Americans have
saved more than eight billion dollars thanks to energy efficient
(19:21):
upgrades across the country and that if they continue, that
savings will increase to thirty eight billion dollars by twenty thirty.
So when you say that this bill, you know, this
this reconciliation plan that they want to push through, this
big awful bill, will destroy these things, I just think, well,
(19:44):
who would want to set thirty eight billion dollars on fire? Like,
imagine what we could do with that money for you know,
upgrades and infrastructure and kids. It's like, the the insanity
of having a dirt to your world and wasting money
just feels so ridiculous to me. So why do you
(20:09):
think they've worked so hard to make environmental issues, clean energy,
the literal evolution of an innovation in technology seem like
it's a partisan thing instead of just what we should
be doing as a global power.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Well, it's a very difficult question as to why people
who are literate could shut their eyes to both the
obvious threat and the obvious benefits of clean energy. It's
very difficult, but I'll give it my best shot to
see where this comes from. Number One, you ask who
these people are. These are people who are behold into
(20:48):
the fossil fuel industries. In the fossil fuel industries are
the most powerful corporations in world history. They're much more
powerful than the mediciese during the Italian period. So they're
answering to their their bosses, if you will, Who are
the people with the billions of dollars in an old,
unfortunately dirty industry that they are answering to. Those are
(21:11):
the people telling them how to vote. So that's number one.
Number two, they've got a cult going on right now
where they've got a guy in the White House that
somehow has a phobia about wind turbines. He says they
cause cancer, but we know they don't cause cancer, they
cause jobs, And he somehow he didn't want to see
a wind turbine within sight of his golf course and
(21:33):
decided he wanted to destroy this entire industry. It's nuts.
But number three, there is a deeper reason. If I
can and it requires a little more thought to think about.
It's fear. Fear is very powerful, and in their case,
they are afraid that we can't solve this problem. They're
afraid that we can't have a modern lifestyle by addressing
(21:58):
this problem, and so they shut their eyes. It. It's
like they want to put the monster in the in
the closet, you know. They get the monster in the closet.
They don't want to let it out because they're afraid
that will lose all of the modern benefits we have
of ev warmth in our house and food on the table,
and electronics at our disposal. And they don't see a
(22:18):
vision that can allow us to live that life. I do,
and so many thousands and millions, and the majority of
Americans do because we're now experiencing it and the joy
of this. It's the joy of clean energy. I remember
talking to this woman. We got solar panels for a house.
We have a thing called the Climate Commitment Act Washington State,
(22:40):
and it generates money so we can help Washingtonians get
access to clean energy. So she lives in top and
it she gets up at three o'clock every morning, goes
picks apples. Top finished Washington, and I met she and
her daughter right their front yard looking up at her
solar panels, and she said, I am the best day
of my month is the day I get my utility
(23:01):
bills because it's zero, says I. Just it's like a
gift every month. So we hear these stories of people
getting heat pumps who've lowered their costs and have much more,
you know, comfortable homes. And by the way, now heat
pump now gives you air conditioning too, and we now
need that in Seattle. We never needed air conditioning until now,
(23:21):
but now the heat domes are hitting us right and
it helps on air quality in so many ways. And
we've had a problem with air quality because of forest fires.
By the way, you mentioned financial impact on this. One
of the great things people don't think about are the
health costs associated with this. We have an epidemic of asthma.
We have kids with neighbors that they don't know anybody
(23:44):
doesn't have asthma, and it's getting worse because of forest
fire smoke and also because of the particular matter that
comes from burning fossil fuels. So the financial cost is
not just losing jobs. It's not just losing industries. It's
losing your health and the health costs have gone up
(24:05):
dramatically because of that. So there's so many ways this
makes sense. I've given you my best explanation as to
why this is. And it's very unique to America. You know,
you go to other continents. This is not a debate
between the liberal and conservative parties. You know, every country
has a liberal and conservative party, and there's unanimity that
(24:26):
we got to do something about this. And the rest
of the world. It's a very strange thing in the
United States and most bizarre because we're the most technologically
adept people in the world. You know, we're the ones
that went to the moon. Yeah, and so why this
has infected us is a little strange. But we need
to do something about it, which is get out there
and vote in March.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yes, sir. And you know what's also not lost on me.
There's the economic cost. There's obviously that the health costs.
There's also a cost to our national security, which you
were just referencing. You know, the United States is really
a leader on science and technology, and as we see
(25:10):
these threats to you know, our research institutions, funding grants,
all of these things It's not lost on me that
if we, you know, knock the wheels off the bus
of progress on environmental science, we're given it to other
countries like we will forfeit our future as technologists to
(25:35):
countries like China. And it's really important for us to
continue to lead on this from a democracy.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So this is this is where we shine. We do
two things really well, at least till now in America.
What is democracy, which we gave to the world in
the modern world, and to our scientific and innovative, entrepreneurial genius.
And both of there in an assault right now. We
know about the assaults on democracy, but the assault on science,
the assault on innovation, the assault on creativity based on technology.
(26:09):
You know, you're in a creative business, right and congratulations
on your career, But science is a creative business as well,
and by choking that creativity, this is really the economic
powerhouse of the United States. The economic growth of the
United States starts in laboratories, probably most, if not many,
(26:30):
if not most, in university laboratories. That's where these ideas
come from, where they start, that's where these startups come
out of. And right now that's choked off for reasons
that really are difficult to understand because those researchers now
are not coming to do research and projects. They are
going to Germany and England and China, and that's where
(26:53):
that research is going to go. Because these researchers, they
have a passion for doing it. They're going to find
a place to do it, and now we're telling them
they can't do it, and it's so insidious. One old story.
So we were when we marched last weekend. We had
a unique way of doing it. We did it on
our ferryboat. So on the ferry from Bambridge Island to Seattle.
(27:14):
We had two thousand people walking around the ferryboat deck
in protests. And I met a woman named Ella and
she is a freshman at Harvard. She is the pole
vault champion in the Ivy League and she's also a
medical device researcher at age like eighteen or nineteen, and
she's doing research on using mechanical energy instead of electrical
(27:40):
energy to power little devices that are put in your
body as a simpler way to do it. And she
has a research grant, which is incredible, the eighteen nineteen
year old person thinking about medical devices. Yeah wow. And
her Grant just got canceled. Can't do it this summer.
She was going to be trying to invent something that
can help people of my age get through the aging process,
(28:04):
and they canceled her. And that is so heartbreaking to
see the ambition in her eyes quashed. Now she's resilient,
she's going to go on. So I told her, look,
this may delay your work, but it's not going to
stop it. So go pull vault this summer and we'll
be back when Democrats get in charge of the House
(28:25):
of Representatives at least, so we're hoping that'll happen. By
the way, there's litigation on all of this too. Yes,
we're hopeful. We've got you know, a dozen injunctions already
against Trump's trying to stop this progress. So all is
not lost here. So we've still got hope.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
We'll be back in just a minute. But here's a
word from our sponsors. Not that I'm any fan of
the person I'm about to mention, but even Elon Musk
is warning that America will not win the technology race
without clean energy production. We've got to have it. There's
(29:06):
no amount of oil drilling that'll be able to fulfill
our needs. There's no way to increase production to those levels,
and it doesn't make any sense, as we've said, because
it's more expensive.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Well listen, maybe Elong got one right recently, and that's
the one that choking off technological innovation is crazy in
the United States of America. And by the way, his
story is instructive too, because it also shows how governmental
investment early in the arc of progress in these technologies
(29:41):
is extremely important. His company got to start in part
because of some federal assistance that helped that company get going.
That makes sense because while you're competing with these incumbent
old technologies, getting a little start, a little seed money
really really helps. And it does so well. I started
a thing called the Clean Tech Center or a testbed
(30:04):
facility at the University of Washington several years ago and
met these two young guys that had invented a way
to increase the efficiency of a solar cell by kind
of concentrating the light, changing the frequency, counturing some of
the frequencies of light. That was like four years ago. Well,
now they've spun off their company, they've been acquired by
somebody else, And it started with this little seed money
(30:28):
from the university, from the State of Washington to start
this clean tech lab.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Yeah, and I think it's really important to frame things
this way for people to understand, you know, how large
the sphere of effect for these industries really is and
that it affects you know, science, tech, budget, health, everything.
I think it can be a little hard to wrap
(30:53):
your head around it because it's such an enormous part
of our world. And one of the things I think,
and you can tell me if I'm correct here, one
of the things I think I'm seeing is, especially with
the extreme weather and the way things are changing, you know,
(31:19):
since Trump got back into office, I do feel like
I'm seeing people realize, you know, this is this is bad.
The fact that Noah is changing, that he wants to
absolutely you know, cut it down to basically be completely inefficient.
That signals to Americans that the president is essentially saying
(31:43):
you're on your own. You know. Disaster warnings have not
gone out on days they needed to since he took office,
and people have died. Can you kind of walk us
through a bit what Noah and the National Weather Service
do and why they are so important to folks across
(32:06):
the country.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I can, and I wish I wasn't so experienced at this,
but you know, I was governor for twelve years for
the most beautiful state in the country, and the most
beautiful country and the planet, most beautiful planet in the
Solar system, but it was injured so multiply by climate
related disasters. And I know so many people whose lives
(32:29):
have been interrupted and sometimes lost because of these climate
related disasters. And it's very personal with me because I've
seen what that trauma does when your house has been
burned down. I remember this couple in WINACTI standing just
in literally the ashes of their house, hugging each other,
just trying to support each other. It's such trauma when
(32:50):
you lose your house or your life. We had two
whole towns burned down in forest fires, and of course
our forest fires have almost doubled in the last several
decades because of heat. Because of heat and drought and dryness,
these forests are just tenders waiting to explode now across
the Western United States. There's no force on nature that
can really totally solved. We can manage our forests, we're
(33:13):
doing that, but you can't totally solve the problem when
they're so dry. So I've seen this personal and when
I've seen what Trump did, which was so callously indifferent,
it really does make my blood boil. This town called
mal didn't burned down several years ago in eastern Washington.
The whole town burned down. In fact, the fire engine
(33:33):
burned down in the fire station. The fire is moving
so quickly, and we asked, you know, the federal government
for help, and Trump says, no, I'm not going to help.
And when the Republican congresswoman said, why won't you help?
You know, this is a Republican district, and he said,
because I don't you know, I don't like the governor.
You know, he's not subservient to me, won't kiss my
(33:56):
ring often enough. So he refused assistance to those families
whose homes were in ashes, whose lives were severely compromised.
And because the whole town, when you have the whole
town burned down, you just don't have something to go
back to. There's no city hall, there's no fire station,
there's no medical clinic. And so that is so devastating
to a community. And to me, how I look at
(34:20):
this problem, when I think about that couple standing in
the ruins of their home, pleading with the president who
was hired to help them turn his back on them. Literally,
he's turning his back on these people their most desperate
moment where he said that we're not going to help
these people. I can't think of a more scandalous, abusive
(34:40):
thing for a public official to do. Look, we're not
asking to go to the moon or cure cancer by
next Monday. We're simply asking him to help these people
who are in stress. And it's fires here, but it's
floods too. I remember talking to another family. They got
flooded out in the northern part to the state of Washington,
(35:02):
and they took about a year to rebuild their home.
They had a party celebrating rebuilding their home, and a
week later, another flood came through and wiped out their
home again. And to turn your back on these people
is just such an outrage, and we need to do
something about it, which clearly is to vote and go
(35:23):
help people that can get into office to stop this madness.
Now he talks about it as waste, fraud, and abuse.
But I'll tell you what, when you see a family
standing in those ashes and they ask you for a
little bit of food to eat for a few weeks
and a little bit of rental assistance so they can
go to apartment for a few weeks while to figure
out where're going to be, and maybe some assistance with
(35:46):
jobs because you've lost your jobs because the economy has
been destroyed in your local community. That ain't waste, fraud
and abuse. That's human compassion. It's responsibility of what we
hire the federal government to do. So I'm hopeful this
will turn this around.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
I sure hope so too. I think it's really important
to remind people that programs like this, that's your ROI
for your investment in this country, for your being a citizen,
for your paying taxes and building an economy. You know,
if you don't believe in social safety nets, then go
(36:26):
live somewhere else, go live off the grid, start your
own country and be one of one.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
And we're all at risk here too, no matter where
you live, everybody's at risk from climate related disasters. They're
so omnipresent, and they're almost every week, and it hits
all of us Democrats and Democrat Republicans alike. In fact,
that little talent I told you about Malden, Washington, when
I went back, you know, they voted for Donald Trump,
like by seventy percent. These are communities who are wildly
(36:54):
supportive of him, and then he turns his back on him.
So and unfortunately, this is something we've got to wrap
our heads around. This is going to get worse before
it gets better. The frequency of fires, a frequency of floods,
the frequency of extreme weather events, just rainstorms. We've had
rainstorms that destroyed Mountain International Park several years ago. You know,
(37:15):
it doesn't dribble that we're now having these downpourds. This
is going to increase in the near term because we
didn't start this effort twenty years ago like we should have.
So FEMA and the federal government is going to be
even more important. And it's important that the federal government
get involved because when you have a local community that's hurt,
(37:35):
you need to get these assets from multiple states helping out.
And I've seen this people come from and bless the
Red Cross, who has help, but they can't carry the
whole ball here, No to help people with this.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Assistance well, and I think that's that's something people need
to remember, is that you know, FEMA exists so that
we can take care of each other. And so to
watch the President's suh, you know, thirty percent of the
staff and threaten to eliminate the agency altogether and derail
our hurricane preparation. And you know, have the head of
(38:10):
Noah that he appointed say he didn't even know there
was a hurricane season. I spent ten years in North Carolina.
I know a lot about hurricane season, and it was
really painful for me, despite the fact that I don't
live there anymore, to watch the President deny aid to
the folks who were affected by Hurricane Helene in that state.
It was hard to watch them deny aid to the
(38:33):
tornado survivors in Arkansas. And as you said, a lot
of those folks are his voters. And the whole point
I believe in being a leader is to be a
leader for everyone. And the bottom line is here, and
you mentioned this earlier. You know, there's a lot of
people who make a lot of money on an old system.
And while Trump is currently turbo charging the climate crisis
(38:59):
to increased profits for all his oil and gas buddies, Americans,
you know, red states and blue are paying the price.
And so I think the first step is this moment, right,
it's the informed conversation it's making sure people have the facts.
And then, as you said, it's organizing, and it's getting
(39:21):
out and voting and making sure that all of us
are able to say, hey, this isn't working, This isn't
working for anybody, so we've got to do something differently.
I know that can be hard, probably for some of
the folks at home, because you know, we've got a
year and a half till the midterms. It's scary to
(39:42):
think that we have to keep fighting before we might
see a shift. So to try to inject a little
hope here, I'm curious, as you are an expert in
the space, what you think are some of the most
promising things coming down the pipeline in terms of clean
(40:02):
energy technologies and the job creation that comes out of
those innovative spaces.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Well, first off, I know this sounds nuts. We're at
the moment, we're at the trough of the wave. We've
got our climate DENI and President He's trying to creator
all the federal assistance we're getting. But I am super
optimistic or ability to solve this problem. And the reason
is as I'm surrounded by people in my state who
have emerging technologies that can solve this problem if we
(40:32):
simply allow them a little bit of room to run.
Just give you real quick rundown some of the things
going on in my state. So my state, there are
two companies, Celan Group fourteen. They've invented a new way
to use a silicon anode battery that can increase the
range of your car twenty or thirty percent and charge
it much more quickly. They have manufacturing plants now under construction.
(40:56):
These are real companies making real products that can have
a quantum leap forward in the range of your electric car.
Right around the corner, literally like a mile from those
two companies is a company called twelve that's making jet
fuel out of carbon dioxide and water with no waste products,
so that when you find your jet there's no you
(41:18):
don't have a carbon footprint. If you will, you're using
carbon free fuel. And they're building their manufacturing plant. Right
up the river. About oh twenty miles from them, is
a company's going to build the first fusion energy plant
in the United States, a fifty megawatt production plant using fusion,
(41:39):
not fission. This is not fission that we know as
the old nuclear power. This is a process of fusing
atoms rather than splitting them. Goes back to that book
I read when I was ten that actually they may
begin construction on in the next twelve months. Wow, you've
got companies that are improving the performance of solar energy.
(42:01):
We have the first marine battery manufacturing plant in Bellingham, Washington,
and we're going to be building electric ferries. So now
you won't be breathing in that smoke coming out of
a smokestack of your fairies anymore. They're all electric and
I've ridden them on them in Norway. They work. I've
seen the biggest one in the world is now in Uruguay.
So the wind turbine industry is continuing to be more
(42:22):
productive building solar like crazy. So everywhere I turn around
there's an entrepreneur and skilled working people building news services
and products that contain this piece and reduces our cost
of electricity. I mean, think about this. What a blessing
to have infinite energy fallen on our shoulders that we
(42:45):
can turn into electricity to run whatever we want to
run with no pollution. We don't have to dig a
hole in the ground. It falls. It's delivered free from
nine million miles away from the sun and it falls
right on us. I mean, this is a real blessing. Yeah,
and now to see the continued improvement of those things
(43:06):
is thrilling to me. But we want to accelerate the
pace of that development, not retarded, and we can do
that if we just don't go backwards in some of
these policies.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I mean, that does feel really exciting. And now a
word from our sponsors who make this show possible. When
you think about, for example, you know, you talk about
(43:42):
these technologies, my brain starts to run wild thinking about
what it would be like if suddenly all these airplanes
flying around the planet every day had no carbon footprint,
if every water vessel you know, didn't need to use
gas fuel. It makes me think about the early days
(44:02):
when COVID first began and granted terrifying time, but when
everything really shut down and we started to see how
quickly the planet could rebound if a lot of our
pollutants ceased to be pumped into our air every day.
What do you think or have you heard any of
(44:24):
these scientists talk about what sort of healing we would
see for the planet if entire industries did transform like this.
Are they modeling any of that yet.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Well, I think that first off, the planet does feal
quite quickly, and it astounds me how fast an ecosystem
can't get restored. We had one of the largest dam
removal projects, the Law Dam. It was really of no
use anymore to anyone. It was just obsolete. And the
(44:57):
Ola River and the Olympic National Park and it used
to have this you know, prodigious salmon run and it
was removed. It was really joyous occasion when that happened,
and just within you know, months, salmon were coming back
on that river. It's really astounding to see how salmon
will recover. A little Piper's Creek where I grew up
(45:18):
in the north side of in a suburban area of Seattle,
which didn't have any salmon when I you know, at
least when I was a teenager, and we worked to
restore the community. It was really community led effort, little
help in the state, I think. To restore the habitat,
you know, you just make it so it spreads out,
doesn't run so fast, you put woody debris in it.
(45:39):
Now you got this prodigious salmon run coming back, and
the kids go back and so it's a huge community celebration.
When you see that life really be restored. So we
know that that things do come back. But there are
some difficult realities that we have to face that auto
not make us afraid of progress, but to inspire more
(46:00):
rapid progress. And there are some systemic problems that we
have that are going to be devilius for quite some time,
principally water temperature. So our water temperature has increased so
much in the state of Washington that salmon literally can't
get up some of our rivers. They can't survive. So
(46:20):
we had a really great dam and run go up
to Columbia River, hundreds of miles up the Clembia River,
but stopped when they got to the mouth of the
in Okanahan County because water is too hot. It couldn't
keep going to spawn. Actually we got lucky they finally
got up there because we got a break in the weather.
But this water temperature is your issue, is one that
(46:43):
is difficult. That's why we need to double our efforts
to improve habitat, for instance, to allow mother nature to
do everything so that she can do. And we want
to get back to work and give her a hand.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
We sure do, and you know it is beautiful to
watch it. I got to go and visit some of
the scientists working at Vermeo in New Mexico a few
years ago, and just seeing the restoration of you know,
the cutthroat trout and the bison there. It's absolutely incredible
to watch ecology heal. And it makes me think a
(47:20):
lot about your legacy. You know, during your time as
governor Washington, with your leadership past one of the strongest
clean energy laws in the country, so you know this
stuff is possible. What lessons did you learn about what
it actually takes to rally folks to get ambitious climate
(47:42):
policy passed.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
Well, if I can share it, thank you for the
kudos of our state, because our policies are the best
in the nation. And that's why. It's one of the
reasons we had such economic success, because we're driving all
these new companies to come here and grow, and it's
one of the reasons we have such a dynamic economy.
I'll mention several things. One perseverance, Just say, look, you
(48:06):
butt your head against a brick wall for years and
years and years, and then you finally break through it.
So when I became governor in twenty thirteen, we had
a Republican Senate and they refused to assist in any
way to deal with anything and climate. That was very
frustrating to me. You know, I wanted to have a
bipartisan effort, so I started a bipartisan commission with Republican
(48:31):
senators on it, but they basically just refused to participate.
So then we finally got a Democratic majority in our legislature,
but I still had a couple of kind of folks
that hadn't got the memo, even on the Democratic side,
So I had to work for several years to get
those last two votes, and there were some changes in
the legislature. And what I found is frequently it is
(48:54):
much easier to change the people sitting in the seats
than to change their minds. So we had some changes
and who's sitting in the seats, And on year six
or seven of my governor's term, we finally got the
capstone of our multiple faceted effort, which is a capin
invest system which generates three billion dollars by any m
(49:17):
that we then turn around and get people with heat
pumps and electric school buses and air filtration systems and
everything else. Now we've done other things. We had one
hundred percent clean energy grid requirement. We have the best
building efficiency standards in the United States. We don't waste energy.
We have a low carbon fuel standard which basically gives
people cleaner fuels in multiple ways. We have a Climate
(49:41):
Core to teach kids the science of climate change. So
we've done a lot, but the big most effective tool
is this cap and invest system, and that came in
in twenty nineteen, in year six or seven that we
then now have impact. And here's the really cherry on
the top, the fossil fuel. You know, billionaires didn't like that,
(50:03):
so they came in and tried to repeal this law,
and they put it on the ballot and we had
a knockdown, drag out fight, and the wise citizens of
the state of Washington defeated them sixty two to thirty eight.
I mean, that is the biggest landslide washing state history.
Because Washingtonians understood the economic benefits, the job benefits, the
(50:27):
health benefits, and it wasn't even necessary to talk about
rising sea levels alike, because they understood the first order
of benefits that if you got a heat pump, if
you get solar and wind, and it's cheaper if your
kids don't have to breathe forest fire smoke. Our kids
had to couldn't go outside for days at a time
(50:48):
two summers ago because of forest fire smoke. So people
understood the first order of magnitude and funally gave us
a blue Riven seal of approval. I think that you
give confidence to politicians going forward, looking at the experience
in Washington State. We bring companies here instead of them
(51:09):
going somewhere else because we have this entrepreneurial culture exactly.
We invest in them and then people support it. So
people said this is not a winner politically, they're just
dead wrong. I've seen it firstand first off, I got
elected governor running on this. Then we won sixty two
thirty eight. Going away, this is a winning issue if
(51:30):
it's properly framed and you talk about it in the
right way.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Well, it turns out if you tell people the truth
that helps. It helps. So, now that you are out
of office for the last several months, and obviously I
know you're spending a lot of time with your grandkids
and you're still so incredibly involved, when you look forward,
(51:57):
what feels like your area of most excited focus, what
feels like your work in progress for what comes next.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Well, I'm still engaged in this fight and in a
variety of ways. I'm working with a group called Climate Power.
Climate Power has been in a very effective group to
help communicate the truth. As you said, just you know
the truth, use the truth. It's so simple, as Mark
Twain said, so easy. So I'm working with them on
communication to let people know about the power of clean
(52:28):
energy across the country and multiple forums. I'm working on
an effort to help people who have losses due to
forest fires have some system to help them. So I'm
quite active. I'm active in trying to raise my voice
on ferryboats, marching with people and letting them to know
how important that is to help people on the electoral
(52:51):
cycle as well. So I'm quite engaged in this effort,
and I am as cited. I know it's easy to
kind of get down in the situation and we're in,
but I just believe we're going to succeed in this.
I don't believe humans ultimately will be the cause of
their own destruction. I don't believe that. I believe that
we will rescue ourselves. It's been delayed by this electoral cycle,
(53:14):
but we've been delayed before I went through the Bush era.
You know, I went through the second Bush presidency where
he started a war in Iraq, and you know a
lot of these wars are associated with access to oil,
and he slowed down our effort. You know, he wanted
to do cold based stuff that just didn't pencil out
at all, and his presidency slowed us down by years.
(53:36):
But we came back during the Obama era. We pasted
things going forward. We all became this close to passing
a cap and invest bill. Then we got slowed down
again by Trump. But then we got the Biden presidency
where there's you know, a miracle of the Inflation Reduction
Act and the tax cuts, which are now threatened again
got passed, and we've seen spectacular economic growth. Some of
(54:00):
these companies that I told you about Washington, they got
a little benefit to get going because of those tax benefits,
and right now they're under threat again. You know, we
talked about Senator Tillis. He could cause forty five thousand
job losses and in state over the next couple of
decades if he votes to get rid of these tax
cuts or to make them less accessible to people. Now
(54:22):
I've heard he's trying to make it. He's trying to
sweeten the deal a little bit. You know, he's trying
to make it that you don't destroy the tax cuts
till a little later. Well, that's like saying, hey, give
me a benefit because I've delayed your hanging by a
couple of weeks. That's not really an answer to this problem.
We need Republicans to stand up and preserve this. My
point is progress is not linear. Yes, you're going up
(54:46):
and then you're stable. You're going up, then you're stable
a step by step. Martin Luther King was right, said,
you know, the arc of the moral universe is long, Yes,
but it bends towards justice, and it is long. This
battle is long, and this is a moment of we
got some headwinds, but the winds are going to change.
(55:06):
We're going to be back in business and the genius
that is in our country is going to be unleashed again.
And we're going to get better, cheaper energy and healthier kids. Yes,
and less climate change. And I believe that's going to happen.
I wish what happened.
Speaker 1 (55:23):
Yesterday, you and me both, Governor, But I've.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Learned that the power perseverance the most important thing in
this battle.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
Indeed, I love that the power of perseverance is a
good one to focus on. Thank you so much for
joining us today, you know, to give us a window
into what you know and what we all can do.
I hope to see you at a march, either on
the water or on the land very soon.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
Well, I will tell people, as we've bed to do,
whatever you do right now has value. You have agency,
people have power and authority already right now. And anything
you do of contacting your legislators, being out on the
sidewalks pieceively, talking to your cranky uncle about why this
is a good idea, all of those things mount up.
(56:14):
Everybody can put a brick in the wall here. So
whatever you're doing out there, keep it up. We're going
to win this battle, and I will be there with you.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
I can't wait. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
Thank you,
Hosts And Creators
Bethany Joy Lenz
Sophia Bush
Robert Buckley
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