"If a governor really wanted these ports, he could streamline the process [in the Department of Ecology], as well," Macfarlane said.
Neither Inslee or McKenna have a firm position on the issue, but several analysts said McKenna appears friendlier to the coal port option. In a debate this summer, McKenna said coal would travel through Washington on its way to a Canadian port if the state didn't build its own.
"Can these coal projects meet our strict environmental and health processes? If they can satisfy these strict standards, we need the jobs here," McKenna said at the debate.
Differences on renewable portfolio standard
Brendon Cechovic, executive director of Washington Conservation Voters, said the differences between the candidates on coal likely would become clearer after the election. The issue is extremely contentious now, particularly since many labor groups want the ports for jobs, he said.
Inslee and McKenna also differ on the state's portfolio standard, which requires utilities to obtain 15 percent of their power from renewables by 2020. Inslee campaigned extensively for its passage while he was a congressman.
McKenna's plan calls for counting more hydropower as part of the standard and blending it with efficiency measures, so utilities get credit for conserving energy and not just building new power.
"That would gut the initiative and defeat the purpose of building new renewables," Cechovic said. His group is spending more than $700,000, the most in its history for a governor's race, to elect Inslee.
Todd Myers, an energy consultant who has advised McKenna, said the Republican candidate doesn't want to get rid of the existing standard.
Inslee, by focusing on tax credits and other financial incentives in his book and campaign, wants to pick business winners and losers, he said. Inslee "seems to be in love with certain technologies, and that is dangerous," he said.
The state Republican Party has sent out numerous press releases noting that some of the renewable businesses supported by Inslee in his book have faced financial troubles.
On hydropower, Myers said there are some years when large amounts of snowpack provides more water for generation than usual in Washington. In those years, it doesn't make sense to "dump water from dams" in favor of wind or solar, he said.
McKenna, he said, thinks it makes sense for that extra hydropower to count under the standard.
Washington already has a much smaller carbon footprint than other states that use a lot of coal. Lowering the state's emissions much more in the electricity sector is like "squeezing more blood from a turnip at this point," he said.
In his plan, Inslee notes excess hydropower capacity but emphasizes "virtual batteries, scheduled transmission improvements and power swaps" as the way to use the extra juice without cutting out other renewables.
His campaign has fired back that Mckenna is distorting Inslee's book. The campaign says the Republican is more likely to send wind and solar jobs to China and end Washington's status as a leader in clean energy.
N.H. nail-biter
Across the country in New Hampshire, the debate over climate change is similarly contentious.
Democratic Gov. John Lynch is retiring. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ovide Lamatogne is in a nail-biter race against Democrat Maggie Hassan, a former state senator.
Lamatogne is pushing to follow New Jersey's lead and pull New Hampshire out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade program limiting utility emissions in New England states, New York, Delaware and Maryland. To Lamatogne, the carbon-trading plan is a tax that is picking energy winners and losers, skewing the free market.
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6 Comments
Add CommentCompared to the Republican base, McKenna is a freaking communist!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf he were running in Texas, he wouldn't even be able to make the Democratic Party.
Like most polititalk, it's probably just rhetoric, but it's nice to see a Republican who isn't completely in thrall to Exxon-Mobil.
Furthermore, I think that cash incentives are way too soft on Big Business. Let's set up a socialist nation; it'll be a hell of alot better than the capitalist hell in which we now reside.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[end political/economic/social/environmental rant]
Unfortunately Inslee's state and its hapless and so very stupid taxpayers are losing their shirt on "green" energy ie environmentally destructive, forest clear cutting, wind and firewood burners in Washington state. These morons voted in a state renewable energy standard (15%) and are losing their shirts on it, while rejecting every attempt at a reasonable mass transit system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFortunately not being a complete idiot Inslee has endorsed nuke power as well.
Wind at a fixed must pay 10 - 12 cents/ kwh normally blows spring and fall and/or at night when it its not needed so has to be dumped on the grid regardless of cost. As a result BC Hydro with its massive network of dams gets paid by Wa state taxpayers to take that power off their hands, stores the power in its dams overnight by running the province on Wa wind power, then selling it back at premium rates daytime peak.
As well Washington dams have to release water all the time to keep proper levels for fish. Unfortunately, this energy free to the taxpayer has to be dumped as well as pride of place belongs to the politically connected Big Oil owned wind farm.
Two years ago for two weeks in the middle of a nasty cold snap in the middle of the peak power winter the Pacific Northwest lost all wind power. Tough when wind is 5% of load - deadly when it is 20%.
The other major source of green energy in the state is filthy deadly polluting worse than coal, GHG spewing, forest wrecking firewood burning - or Bioenergy for the politically correct. This form of not green energy is now universally rejected by Big Green but is accepted by the state due to purchasing of politicians by Big Timber operators.
Solar power of course is worthless in this far northern state, but subsidies are getting some of it build - a 100% waste of taxpayer's money.
Inslee's support of nukes is dependent on it being more economical after the Wppss fiasco, despite the fact that the one plant working - Columbia Generating station - is one of the lowest cost electricity producers in the country. The Pacific Northwest would have been in great shape for the future, if those WPPSS plants had been built. Instead they built coal plants that kill hundreds of citizens ever year from deadly toxic radioactive emissions.
The new zero environmental footprint nuke plants being built at VC Summer are 15% the cost of filthy new wind when backup and 5 times sized wind transmission builds are included.
That should satisfy Inslee.
No mention of work by hundreds here in #wa to get 6 science questions answered in gov race:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.sciencedebate.org/wa2012/
One candidate (Inslee) answered but McKenna did not.
Bird:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have read your responses to many of others' ignorant posts, and I generally agree with you regarding most of the issues at hand, but please cite proper sources when refuting claims. It would give you more credibility.
Good point. Sometimes, citations are unnecessary, though (I refer you to the ludicrous claims of julianpenrod).
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