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Thank you.

>> Now into his third term and with another legislative session behind him, is it time for Governor Inslee to take a bit of a victory lap?

After all, just about all of his agenda on climate, transportation, salmon recovery, and the rest, is law and moving toward implementation with a generally successful navigation of the COVID crisis now in the rearview mirror.

Make no mistake, there are conservative critics across wide swathes of the state, who battled masks, worry about crime, question the state's robust spending, and doubt the practicality of green initiatives, that below the surface might be dirtier than they may appear.

But if political success is measured by accomplishing legislative policy goals, the democrats and their gubernatorial leader are lapping the competition.

That is part of the discussion with Governor Inslee, next on Northwest Now.

[ Music ] Governor Inslee, great to have you here on Northwest Now.

Good to finally meet in person here after a couple of years.

>> Yeah, we're back, and I was just complimenting your background.

You got maintains, we got the narrows, what a beautiful state and you've got it right here in the studio.

>> Yeah, I appreciate that, we put a lot of work into updating the set.

>> It's hard to make Washington look bad.

>> Yeah, there's no bad shots, that's what I always tell people.

Want to start with a couple of news items; the first one's abortion, what's your take on this from the impact on the state?

I really don't see much of an impact here, it's codified here.

It's an issue, but for Washingtonians, does it matter much?

>> It does, because at the moment, under the existing statute, Washington State has a statute that protects a woman's right of choice, but we have to recognize, that exists only as long as the people in Olympia allow it to exist.

And we have one party that is very dedicated to removing the right of choice for the people in the State of Washington and that party is bound and determined to remove that right.

So if that party ever became a majority party in our state legislature, and the governor's office, women in the State of Washington would lose that right, I'm quite sure of that.

So the point is, voting still counts in this issue because we have one party, the Republican Party, who wants to remove that right.

And if they ever become majority in the State of Washington, that right will be extinguished.

So it still matters to have this discussion and people to be alert of this issue and as you know, I'm committed, as are the vast majority of Washingtonians, to not take this right away from women in the State of Washington.

>> I'm amply warned, and I say that a little tongue in cheek there, I know the Republican Party is chained significantly in this state, do you feel though that most mainstream republicans would propose that?

>> Well the politicians would, I don't know about the voters because I think maybe even half or more of republican voters don't want to criminally prosecute women who exercise the right of choice.

But the politicians are, in the offices, are totally committed to this and they will do this on a national basis as well I believe, if the republicans were to take over the U.S. Congress.

So you have to be alert to that threat, I believe it is a real threat, and that's why voting still counts in this state.

>> Anything the state is doing or should be doing or that you might direct them to do in terms of handling cross border traffic with other states to our east or they can pretty much handle that?

>> Yeah, a couple things, one are we're exploring what we can do to protect people in the State of Washington to prevent criminal prosecution from other states, we will try to protect people in the state of Washington and to one utilize those services.

We've helped Idaho residents during COVID, they did not act with the same protection for their citizens as we did, as a result we had to take care of Idahoans in our hospitals, so we will be welcome to provide this healthcare when people come from Idaho and other states.

But we are, have to have the services available, we have to have a number of providers available, we'll have to beef those things up.

I'm confident those things will happen and we will remain a sanctuary for this right.

>> You dipped your toe into national politics, I know you observe it, I really get the feeling, without an opinion about right or wrong on any particular issue, we are really living-- there are two Americas now I'm starting to feel.

I think we've, you and I have had the discussion before about two Washingtons, red and blue with, the red geographic and blue in terms of population density, but I'm feeling like that for the entirety of the country.

You look at the states, you can really live in a different place in a different state these days.

>> To some degree that's true, but there is something that ought to unite us across the state and across the country, we are people of great diversity and thought and ethnicity and language and everything else, but the one thing that ought to unite us I believe is a commitment to democracy.

A commitment to keeping this blessing we've had for a couple centuries now which really is a blessing, we're seeing what happened when you don't have a democratic system, and unfortunately that's under attack too right now.

And the one thing I hope that we all unite around are some fundamental principles of democracy.

One of which is we have votes, and we count the votes and then however the people voted, we respect those decisions.

That's under attack right now.

>> Did you ever think you'd see that day where you'd have to sit here on a show like this, and say I'm worried about democracy?

No, but I am worried about democracy.

We saw a coup effort on January 6, in our Federal government.

We see continued efforts of one of the parties trying to not follow the votes.

We need to count the votes and then we need to be united in respecting those decisions.

Unfortunately we have certainly one, the former defeated president who has continued to try to attack democracy and that's a situation even in our state where we have candidates questioning who the governor was, right?

We voted by half a million votes that elected myself, and people were still trying to attack that.

So, yes, I am concerned about that, I think democracy ought to be the thing that we can all rally around, even though we disagree.

And I hope that we will do that more often.

>> Does one party rule in this state help or hurt that?

And I know it's nice to win, I get that part, but there's also a checks and balances piece here, a good governance piece, I wouldn't set up a company without some other voices in the room.

>> Well I would take issue with you saying it's one party rule.

No party rules the State of Washington, we have votes.

And we count the votes.

And I think that democratic principle ought to be the case.

And voters will, ought to be respect with, this is what I come back about the value of democracy.

I believe we should all be committed to democracy even if you don't win a particular race.

Look, I've lost a race or two in my time, and it's part of democracy.

But we accept it, we honor it, we ought to be guardians of it, and that's why I think we should all be committed to.

>> Couple of bullet points on another news item; COVID.

Vaccine mandates for state employees, is that, which, when you look down the road, what are you thinking there?

>> Well I think one thing, our increasing vaccination rates have saved a lot of lives in our state, if we had the same fatality rate for instance, as Mississippi, if we had done the same things Mississippi did, we'd have 18 thousand more lives lost in the State of Washington.

And so the one thing I know is vaccines can save lives and have saved lives.

And unfortunately I've seen the consequences when we have state members of our workforce not get vaccinated.

I remember going to a funeral of a corrections officer who was not vaccinated and listening to his 9-year-old daughter eulogize him and I was just sitting there thinking; jeez, this is such a shame that that father is not there for his daughter right now.

So that need still continues and exists today.

We have increasing numbers of infections in our state.

We have increasing hospitalizations.

So at the moment, we need to get, continue to be committed to having people vaccinated, and by the way, that saves in our workforce.

Because if you don't get vaccinated and you get sick, I don't have you there to do the state job, so this is also important.

>> But no news coming on that for a while?

>> Not right now, this is not the moment to change that.

>> Another thing, and I know you've talked about this, Washington State did what it did and I think the differences are stark in terms of how we approached the pandemic.

But there are costs with everything, as you well know, and one of the costs has been a real wave of depression among young people.

Some of the research coming out about school aged kids and teenagers, prior to the pandemic man, I was all about social media, that rests at the door of social media.

The pandemic piece and the isolation piece has not helped.

What are your thoughts on that, is there anything the state needs to be doing from a policy perspective?

>> Yeah, we have, listen I got big concerns, I got grandkids coming to the teenage years, so this is something in all of our concerns and we have had increasing rates of depression and anxiety, a combination of social media, because that has gone up just as social media has gone up.

And COVID was on top of it.

So what we are doing is providing more psychological behavioral health, mental health services for our kids.

That's why I was very pleased that my proposal was accepted by the legislature to put millions of dollars of more money into our schools so we can get nurses, school nurses that are doing a great job, more psychologists, more workers with families to deal with homelessness, to deal with these kids' mental health crisis in the schools.

So we put millions into this this year, I believe it is going to help our kids, but that's not the only thing we need to do, we need to increase the pipeline of people who are there to provide these mental health services, we do not have enough psychologists.

>> Yeah, big shortage on that, yeah.

>> And so, we want to improve access to that, that's why I'm also happy that we've now increased our financial aid to students to be able to get them through college without enormous debt.

We have the best program in the United States for allowing people to finance their college education.

In fact, we're actually, that's why I'm in Tacoma today, we're going over to the UDub campus to celebrate that, that we're giving a way for students to fill these important jobs.

>> And eligibility for that has expanded a little bit, right?

What are some of the mechanics of that?

>> Oh yeah, expanded dramatically and so I think there's a lot of things we got to be proud of in the State of Washington, the best paid family leave, highest minimum wage, we've been ranked the best place to live, the best place to do business.

But one of the things we ought to be most proud about is, it is the best place to want to go to college.

Because we have the best financial aid program, to essentially guarantee the ability to people to finance college.

College is not the only thing, we're also committed to apprenticeships, we're committed to our Career Connect Washington because we got all these great careers you could have by having an apprenticeship program, not necessarily going to college.

We're committed to that as well.

>> Yeah, I was going to say, the apprenticeship thing I know is a big one in Washington that's expanding that you've worked on over time as well, which is also a big piece of our licensees mission here at Bates Technical College, so.

>> Yeah, Bates is doing great work.

>> Economic development, bit headline, I reacted to it with a wow, the Sela company coming into Moses Lake.

And this is something you've been talking about for a long time, is getting the demand side, getting the demand built so that industry will come, so the people will work in this green economy.

It's been a concept for a long time, but this seems like a very concrete illustration of what can happen.

>> Yeah, this is really exciting to me as governor.

I'm very fortunate to be the governor of the best state, having some of its best years during our great history.

Because we are now experiencing this revolution of clean energy jobs and companies in our state.

You mentioned the Sela Company, this is a company that has found a way to use a silicone anode to increase the capacity of batteries for cars, trucks, and our grid ultimately.

They just bought a building or leased a building in Moses Lake, they're going to put hundreds of people to work, and we're seeing this thing happen all over the state.

I was close to Lynn, Washington, saw a solar plant went in Lynn, with these beautiful solar panels on the hill.

Then we went to a new wind turbine farm where it can provide clean energy for 38 thousand people.

Met a guy who did go into an apprenticeship program with the iron workers, loves this new job maintaining and building these.

We have another company in Maltby, Washington called Group 14, they're also making a silicone based battery, we have a company in Seattle called First Mode, they're not making a fuel cell that can power a locomotive.

Right here in Tacoma there's a company called OCOchem, we just gave them a grant to develop a way to provide a generator system with low CO2 to keep product refrigerated at the Port of Tacoma, so we're not putting out big pollution while we're doing.

New, whiz bang technology right here in Tacoma, Washington.

So we're seeing these jobs being created all over the State of Washington, it's hugely exciting.

We did it for aerospace, right?

We gave the world aerospace.

We did it for software, we're doing it for clean energy right now.

And just in the nick of time because that snow is melting, you've heard that the glaciers in Olympic Park will be gone by 2070.

>> Yep.

>> Just coming down here this morning I heard a report about the dead and dying trees we're having, the forest fire we're experiencing.

>> And certain species here in Western Washington, cedars-- >> Our cedars-- Cedars were hit big time last year because of the temperatures.

Our salmon are on the verge of extinction, just because the water is so hot.

So, this is just in the nick of time that we're developing a clean energy economy and putting people to work.

That's a two-fer.

>> Set me straight on the criticisms I see, and these aren't memes on social media, but some actual research that I've looking at.

There's no doubt that electric car driving by is not creating tailpipe emissions and it's cleaner.

But if you look at it from cradle to grave, from mining for the battery materials, for recycling the plastics in it, boy, it is not, it's a fairly narrow margin of cleanliness if that makes any sense.

So, address that.

>> Yeah, well first off, it's very important that we look at the life cycle of whatever we do, right?

You need to look at that.

Give you an example, so electricity is, we treasure it, right?

It's great, it's clean, if you put it in your electric car, it is substantially, I believe in the life cycle of electric cars, they are substantially cleaner in the life cycle.

>> Right, but you got to make the electricity.

>> But you've got to make that electricity.

So if you're making that electricity from coal, right, you're really not improving significantly compared to fossil fuel.

So you have to look at the life cycle of the system.

Now fortunately in our state, we have the cleanest grid system in America, so today it's very, very clean.

We are closing our last coal fired plant in Centralia and replacing it with renewable energy, and we have the best 100% grid built where we will have 100% clean in the decades to come.

So we will have clean electricity, I do believe the life cycle will be dramatically better than a gas powered car.

Even today in the State of Washington-- >> Here come the Snake River Dams.

>> Yeah.

>> So, we need that hydro don't we?

>> We got to replace it and we're studying now about the ability to do so.

We haven't made any decisions one way or another on the dams.

But we are looking how would we replace those services.

It's both clean electricity, it's transportation using the barges to do wheat.

And it's irrigation, so the question is now we have a study that's in process to determine how would we replace those if we did breach the dams and we're looking for honest answers to those questions.

>> When do you think-- >> These are-- >> What's the timeline look for that?

>> I'm sorry?

>> What's the timeline look for that?

>> Well, we hope to have that study in months, by sometime this summer.

>> Okay.

>> That study will come back and we can have an assessment asking those questions.

And those are important questions to get answers to.

>> Another thing I look at, because I look that this kind of material a lot, is that the renewables are great, they're, clean power, clean grid, but there's a certain 24/7/365 baseline, base load power requirement that this nation has with 350 million people in it, and all the economic development we're trying to do, that the conventional wisdom right now is that renewables aren't going to do it.

So my question to you is, do you see modern, well-designed, well-located nuclear possibly coming back into the mix here?

It's distinctly possible.

There are new systems of small reactors with different technology that doesn't produce so much waste in this regard that are much, much we hope, less expensive.

I mean the thing that has prevented nuclear from blossoming is the expense, largely.

That's what's prevented it from moving forward.

So research is ongoing right now in Idaho and Washington State to determine whether that is an option and I would not foreclose that as an opportunity.

But I do want to say this, and those who are critical of renewable energy, who have questions and there are many questions we're going to have to get answers, we got to understand one central point, we don't have a choice here, okay?

If we're going to have a place where humans can exist, we don't have a choice, we have to solve these problems.

Failure is not an option.

In India it's been 116 degrees, you literally can't go outside and survive-- >> And these are earlier days for a lot of those technologies too.

>> These are early days, we know that they blossom over time, the cost trajectory has gone down dramatically, solar has come down by a factor of half in a decade or in a decade or two, wind continues to come down, we have new technologies coming all the time.

Look at this little company I just talked about, OCOchem in Tacoma, new technology.

Might be able to avoid the necessity of running a generator on diesel to keep your fruit cold while we're waiting to put it on the boats in Tacoma.

These ideas, they're blossoming like crazy.

So the two things I would say is one, we ought to have confidence in our ability to build these technologies, because we're the most innovative species in the history of the planet and we're the most innovative state in the history of the world.

So we ought to have confidence in our ability to do these things because we are doing them, number one.

And number two, we don't have a choice here.

So we have to find solutions to these problems.

>> A lot of these things that we've talked about and a lot that we haven't that were handled in the last legislative session, and legislative success prior to that in your, with three terms under your, coming up on three terms under your belt here as the governor, are policy victories for you, let's face it.

There are things that you've had a lot, big agenda and a lot of which has been passed into law and is in the process of being implemented.

Is this kind of a mission accomplished moment for you?

A little bit of a victory lap?

I mean what's left?

>> Well, I would like to say that, okay, I would like to set my name for the Oscars of success here, but I can't do that.

There's two parts of this, there's always two parts of life; one is the good news, we do have the best 100% clean electrical grid built in the United States, we do have the best cap and invest bill which has created about five billion dollars that is now going into our transportation bill.

>> In the move ahead, those are related.

>> Move ahead and those are clearly related.

We do have a clean energy, a clean fuels bill that will now give access to cleaner fuels to people.

We do have new building standards that are encouraging clean energy.

We have all these things and this suite is the best suite of policies probably in the United States, in part because it involves also equity, so that the people who have been breathing these terrible toxins, we help them get cleaner air.

So it's the most environmentally equitable as well.

So that's on the good news, so we've had great success.

But, we are not still meeting our targets in the State of Washington for reductions of CO2.

So we need additional steps, we need additional ways to wean our self off of dirty gas and heating our homes and we have-- >> That scares people, Jay.

>> Our building codes have moved forward.

>> It scares people to take away natural gas.

>> Listen, there's no reason to have to have dirty gas right now, and this is dirty stuff and this is a point that I think's important for discussion.

We had a doctor from UW the other day on a forum, who and she told us that if you have gas in your home, you have an increased rate of asthma for your children of 25%.

Twenty-five percent more asthma in the children who are living in homes with dirty gas.

This is a reality we have to face.

And we know it can be very easily replaced by electric power, including cooking, where Microsoft has swapped out their gas for induction ranges, which the chefs love.

And when I talk to a chef they said, oh we were really worried about this, like you said, we were scared we won't be able to do our flambé, flambés or whatever.

Well they found out it's better, they like it just as well, so we can make this transition.

>> Can we afford it all?

>> Yes, we can afford it.

>> Is it sustainable?

>> Yes.

Because over time, electricity is, over time, cheaper than gas over time.

So or not more expensive over time.

There are some capital costs, right, you got to make the investment up front, but you have cheaper, less, and more efficient energy gas waste, I think it's almost half of the gas you burn or maybe it's 25%, is wasted, right?

You're not actually cooking with it, it's wasted.

And so yes, we can, we must, we will, we're doing that, we're demonstrating it.

Heat pumps are working great and they're cost effective.

>> Talking a little bit more about your legislative agenda, if you look through a list of safety net expenditures that have happened in the last couple, it's lengthy, I mean it touches on just about everything.

You mentioned education, but mental health and all kinds of things.

I would say that for people who are in touch with policy and watching that process, they see all these things happening.

For folks, for people out on the streets looking at homelessness, not able to drive in a traffic jam, seeing their children's test scores come back with achievement gaps still in there, there's a disconnect between policy victories and obvious action the legislature and the policy bodies are taking, and the reality on the street.

Set people straight a little bit, how should people interpret this?

What's your message to folks?

>> Well, I don't intend to set people straight, they have a straight assessment of their own lives.

And we have a housing challenge in our state, because we haven't built enough housing.

We just simply have not built enough housing in our state and this is a symptom of several things, but one of it's a symptom of success, because everybody wants to live in the State of Washington.

Why?

Because it's the best place to live.

And so with all our challenges you just described that are real, according to U.S. News and World Report, this is the best state to live in, best educational system, great healthcare, we're an open state, we got the best environment, so it's the best place to live and as a consequence, people are moving here by the hundreds of thousands and we're not building enough housing to house them.

And so this is a symptom of our popularity if you will, and that's something we simply have to realize, we need to build more housing.

>> Regulatory issues though, the [inaudible], the GMA and other things stand in our way.

>> That's why this year I tried to get the legislature to remove some of those zoning restrictions that prevent us from building housing.

Tacoma's making some progress with the leadership of your mayor here, they've made some progress removing some of these regulatory barriers.

Other cities and counties have not.

So we need the legislature to help prompt cities and counties to move forward to allow us to build more housing.

And I want to reiterate, we need to do this quickly.

We can't wait a decade to do this.

So my administration was successful this year getting the legislature to do millions of dollars in rapid housing.

We need to get shelters and rapid housing, including tiny home villages and the like, in months and weeks rather than years and decades.

We're committed to that, in fact I'm meeting tomorrow with my agencies to develop a plan for our right of ways to get housing and shelter for people quickly, not in decades, but in months so that we can get on top or at least reduce this problem.

So anyway, I guess what I'm saying is we have challenges in our state but I do think it's also appropriate to say it's the best place to live in the country, and that's why we're growing this state so rapidly.

>> Jay Inslee, thanks so much for coming the Northwest Now.

I know I always hit you with a lot, but I want to get your take on a lot of these different things.

>> Great state, I'm glad I get to work with it.

>> Thank you, Governor.

>> Thank you.

[ Music ] >> Listen, I know there are at least 1.7 million voters in this state who are in some cases, vehemently opposed to Governor Inslee and the democratic agenda, but remember that the last credible republican candidate for governor ran in 2016.

By the time the next gubernatorial election hits in November of 2024, that will be 8 years in the rearview mirror.

So the bottom line here is that it continues to be important to hear this governor speak at length about how he sees the issues, whether you're all in or whether you're not.

I hope this program got you thinking and talking.

To watch this program again or to share it with others, Northwest Now can be found on the web at KBTC.org, and be sure to follow us on Twitter @NorthwestNow.

Thanks for taking a closer look on this edition of Northwest Now, until next time, I'm Tom Layson, thanks for watching.

[ Music ]