--- title: Washington Gov. Features Climate Change in Presidential Bid description: Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee jumped into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary with a promise to put climate change front and center canonical: https://time.com/5539302/jay-inslee-climate-change/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-01T12:00:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:55.468Z article:section: Politics og:title: Washington Governor Announces Run for President to Fight Climate Change og:description: Jay Inslee is a former member of Congress og:url: https://time.com/5539302/jay-inslee-climate-change/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2328ed956196fe68/6986884535ba6f8cb2c0144a/governor-jay.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Governor Jay Inslee addresses the media outside the Arlington Police Department in Arlington, Washington og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Washington Governor Announces Run for President to Fight Climate Change twitter:description: Jay Inslee is a former member of Congress twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2328ed956196fe68/6986884535ba6f8cb2c0144a/governor-jay.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Washington Governor Announces Run for President to Fight Climate Change > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=b5fa3a62-1e48-4257-b274-5088c720ac0a&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 'I Am a Candidate': The 2020 Race Begins [Watch (HLS stream): 'I Am a Candidate': The 2020 Race Begins](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oJe2gu14.m3u8) (7:59)  _Published 2019-02-20. Things in the last few weeks have started to feel real. TIME correspondents Molly Ball and Philip Elliott point out what the 2020 campaign launches tell us about some of the top contenders, and what we might expect from potential candidates._  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Mar 1, 2019 12:00 PM UTC  Washington Governor Jay Inslee wrote President Barack Obama on Tuesday to ask for more federal assistance for his disaster struck state. Washington Governor Jay Inslee wrote President Barack Obama on Tuesday to ask for more federal assistance for his disaster struck state. JASON REDMOND - Reuters  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Mar 1, 2019 12:00 PM UTC Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee jumped into the 2020 Democratic presidential primary Friday with a promise to put climate change front and center in both his campaign and his potential presidency. Given the serious risks of rising global temperatures, Inslee told TIME in an interview ahead of his announcement that climate change cannot be one item “on a list of things to do.” He pledged to coordinate an unprecedented effort to tackle the issue. “Beating climate change has to be the first priority of the United States,” he said. “It has to be the paramount duty. It has to be the organizing principle of the next administration throughout all its agencies.” The two-term governor, who previously served seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, enters a [crowded field](http://time.com/5534388/) of candidates, many of whom have better name recognition and more buzz, and he hasn’t featured prominently in Democratic primary polling to date. But Inslee is betting that voters in early states will be drawn to his record and message on climate change. Inslee pointed to a [poll](http://origin.lcv.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Climate-Change-among-Democratic-Voters-in-Early-States-Memo-2.14.19.pdf) from the Center for American Progress, a progressive group, showing that tackling climate change is a key concern for primary voters in five early voting states, an issue equalled only by universal health care. To be sure, Democrat candidates all have noted the importance of tackling climate change, but so far none have put it as front and center as Inslee promises to do. Most candidates have endorsed a resolution from the progressive wing of the party calling for a Green New Deal that would seek to supply all of the country’s power by zero-emissions sources by 2030, although some do not necessarily endorse all elements of the plan. And the topic comes up frequently in speeches and campaign messaging, often as a way of hitting President Donald Trump, who announced in 2017 that the U.S. will leave the Paris Agreement on climate change and previously called climate change a hoax. Still, none of the other candidates in the field have signaled that climate change will be the centerpiece of their campaign the way that Inslee plans. Inslee will host a series of climate change-related events in Iowa next week before heading to Nevada and California. Inslee referred to his record on a range of policies from the state’s clean energy standard to a program for electrifying the transportation sector and touted his leadership of an alliance for cities and states to commit to the Paris Agreement. And more than a decade before the Green New Deal entered the national lexicon, Inslee authored a 2007 book calling for a massive spike in government funding for research and development and investment in clean energy that would create so-called green jobs. While endorsing a Green New Deal has emerged as a litmus test for Democratic presidential candidates hoping to win the support of the party’s progressive wing, some say ranking climate change as the top issue may prove more important down the road. Scientists say meaningful action on global warming cannot wait — whatever solution a future president may choose to pursue, and an incoming president typically faces a narrow window to burn political capital and enact sweeping new legislation. Trump enacted a tax cut early in his administration, but has struggled to notch legislative victories since then. President Barack Obama chose to put his energy behind the Affordable Care Act early in his presidency rather than his party’s major climate change bill, which passed the House but never received a vote in the Senate. “You have to be willing to spend your political capital on it,” says Inslee. “I would be willing to do that, and that is the only way this is going to get done.” Inslee declined to lay out the specific planks of a policy platform, but he said he was looking at a combination of direct investment to stimulate clean technologies and regulations to mandate emissions reductions. Carbon pricing mechanisms should not be taken off the table but are not part of his current thinking, he said, adding that his current work in Washington state will accomplish the same emissions reduction goals as the [carbon tax](http://time.com/5431374/washington-carbon-tax-1631-climate-change/) that failed to pass a statewide ballot initiative last year would have. “Our environmental laws have been extremely successful when we’ve applied them,” he says. “We just haven’t applied them to the most dangerous pollutant at the moment, which is carbon dioxide and methane.” ## Transcript I stand here today. On an island in the middle of the mighty Mississippi. Clear eyed about the fight ahead. To declare- Say these words. That I am a candidate for president- I'm running for president. President of the United States of America. President of the United States. Things in the last few weeks have started to feel real. We have the largest and most diverse democratic field. In recent history if not ever, Where did they go first? Where did they decide to ake their announcement? What's backdrop? Are they in a big crowd? Are they in an intimate space? Are they chatting with a talk show host. All very carefully calculated. I stand before you today to announce my candidacy For President of the United States. Senator Kamala Harris is out of the gate making a very clear play from the beginning who she sees her constituencies as. She announced on Dr Martin Luther King Jr day on Good Morning America. I am running for President of the United States. She had a kick- off rally in Oakland She's basing her campaign in Baltimore. She's very clearly making the argument that the electorate that can put her in the White House is female and African American. In our country, if you work hard play by the rules you hath to be able to take care of yourself and the people you love. Elizabeth Warren announced with a video And then went straight to Iowa. She's preaching a sort of prairie populism in the same parts of the midwest where Bernie Sanders did well and where Donald Trump did well and I think the most interesting event that she did was a women's round table with Iowa female candidates. It was a transformative, This event was a way of saying it wasn't these women's year In 2016. But it was in 2018, that's where the momentum is. In America we have a common pain, but what we're lucking is a sense of common purpose. Cory Booker made his decision to announce on Twitter. He then immediately went into the Nation's largest African American radio show. Later in the day he went to the View. Again, another candidate who is making a play that the future is female, the future is African American. He is committed to running this race almost like an Obama. You hear a lot of Obama's optimism and his messaging. But there's also a sense of grievance as well. To announce my candidacy for President of the United States. [ NOISE ] Amy Klobuchar decided to get into this race in a snow storm in Minnesota really tried to selling her credibility as a Mid Westerner that said. You only get one shot introducing yourself. And she spent most of her media tour explaining why she has a reputation as a tough boss. And insisting on a better future. I belong to a generation That is stepping forward right now. We're the generation that- Pete Buttigieg would make history. One, he'd be the youngest person ever elected president, he's 37- years- old, and he'd be the first openly gay individual elected president. He's got some very capable staffers around him who say they're playing the long game, not the headline game. And are building a grassroots organisation for him, in case lightning were to strike his candidacy Kirsten Gillibrand took what is becoming a common approach to presidential annoucements. I'm filing an exploratory committee for president of United States tonight She followed that up with a trip to upstate New York talking about her roots coming from a relatively rural part of the state. Although, that is debatable. She particularly wants to be the feminist candidate. If there can be one. When we raise our right hand and volunteer to serve. Congressman Tulsi Gabbard might win the award for worst out of the gate experience in this campaign. She spent months trying to lay the groundwork for a presidential run, then she suddenly announced to everyone's surprise that she was running in an interview with CNN. I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week. Whoa! [ APPLAUSE ] It took hours before they were able to get an official annoucement up on her social media accounts. It's not outside the realm of the possible that she tries to do launch 2. 0. You see I learned from my mother, so many years ago in this community, that when we want change, we don't wait for change, we work for it. Julian Castro announced his candidacy with a speech in San Antonio, Texas where he is Former mayor and a well known political figure, if you think about the political dynamics of the Trump era, how much of our national conversation has focused on immigration, has focused on diversity, you would think there's a mile wide opening for particularly a candidate of Hispanic origin. Bernie Sanders in 2016 is still fresh in a lot of people's memory For good and for bad. It's going to send a message to the billionaire's class. Of economic, social, racial and environmental justice. Fundraising will not be a problem for him. He captured a lot of people's imagination. But, he also made a lot of people very angry. At this point, some of the most important candidates in the Democratic field are not in the Democratic field. But they're sort of hanging over it. A lot of people tell you, you should be president of the United States is a powerful message. It's tough to pass up. [ MUSIC ] Nobody asked Martin Luther King what his legislative agenda was. He marched to change attitudes. Joe Biden's run for president twice before not very successfully at all. But that's before he served as vice president and became a beloved national figure. He's a very old school politician loves to shake hands and hug babies. Even though he leads in a lot of the early polling, you don't see him scaring a lot of other democrats out of the field. Republicans won big in Ohio in the midterms but Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown is thinking about running in 2020. Sherrod Brown is making a big bet that he can bridge the divide between progressives and the democratic party and the rank and file working class voters. He launched a pre- campaign Dignity of Work tour. You love your country, you fight for the people who make it work. A way to get him part of the King Legacy. the dignity of labor. Without trying to have too sharp of an elbow. Beto O'Rourke burst onto the national Democratic scene with his candidacy against Senator Ted Cruz from 2018. A race that he did not win. But he's sort of publicly agonizing over this decision. [ MUSIC ] Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has sort of come out of nowhere in recent weeks as a potential contender. I am seriously thinking of running for president. He is a former Democrat, but he wants to run as a Centrist Independent. And it's fair to say he set off a panic. Billionaires you need to find new hobbies He's getting a lot of criticism for being a billionaire at a time when I think Democrats are much more focused on economic inequality. No sooner than Howard Schultz announced that he was starting down this path, Bloomberg put out a very self aware statement. Saying, a billionaire with no shot of winning the presidency as a third party candidate is only going to make Donald Trump a two term president. The former mayor of New York City has more money than he could possibly spend in a presidential race which makes him an instant contender. The sheer number of candidates and the uncertainty I think caused by theh very unusual presidency of Donald Trump are going to make this a race like nothing we've ever seen before. These are not fringe or kooky candidates. These are legitimate candidates who represent. Surging constituencies in the Democratic Party. Just about every Democrat in the country has got to be on your long list of candidates, and then there's always the possibility that somebody comes out of left field. Last we heard, Oprah wasn't gonna run, but you never know. So buckle up, it's gonna be a wild ride. 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