Democratic presidential candidate Jay Inslee released a plan Friday to impose a 100% clean energy mandate, requiring all U.S. electricity to be carbon-neutral by 2030.
His proposal for a national clean energy standard would put “America on a path to having all clean, renewable and zero-emission” electricity by 2035, his campaign said in the plan roll-out, eliminating the use of fossil fuels. Such broad language allows for the inclusion of nuclear power, and carbon capture technology, along with wind and solar.
All of America’s coal plants would be closed by 2030 under the plan.
Inslee also calls for mandating all new light- and medium-duty vehicles and buses to be zero-emission by 2030, and requiring all new residential and commercial buildings to be zero-carbon by that same year.
Inslee’s plan uses the language of the progressive Green New Deal, charting a “10-year mobilization to defeat climate change and create millions of good-paying jobs building a just, innovative and inclusive clean energy future.”
It has an overarching goal of making America achieve net-zero emissions, across all economic sectors, “as fast as possible, and by no later than 2045.”
Net-zero, or carbon neutrality, refers to the process of eliminating as many carbon emissions as are produced within the country, through activities such as forest restoration and the deployment of carbon capture technologies.
Most of Inslee’s plan would require legislation approved by Congress, which would be made easier if senators approved his proposal to end the filibuster.
Inslee, the governor of Washington state, is running a single-issue campaign to fight climate change. He kicked off his campaign with a launch video in which he warned, in emotional terms, that the effects of the climate “crisis” are “being felt everywhere,” as video footage flashed of blazing wildfires and waist-deep floods.
He has presented himself as an experienced pragmatist who has accomplished climate change initiatives in his state, one of the greenest in the country.
Last month, he signed a bill making Washington the fourth state in the country to have a 100% clean energy mandate. His new plan for the presidential level is a nationalized version of that.
Also notably, his 2020 proposal does not include carbon pricing, which had been the primary emphasis of his in Washington. He has twice failed to convince voters in Washington state to impose a carbon tax. No other state has a voter-approved carbon tax.
