Coming on the heels of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber's recent resignation comes this from ShiftWA:
Kitzhaber resigns – same groups behind scandal active in Inslee admin, too
Scandal-plagued Oregon governor John Kitzhaber announced today that he will resign next week. A longtime favorite of extreme environmental groups, Kitzhaber was brought down by a scandal over the financial ties between those groups and his energy advisor and fiancée, Cylvia Hayes.
Kitzhaber’s resignation comes amidst new information further connecting California billionaire Tom Steyer to the controversy. Unfortunately for advocates of clean and open government in Washington, Steyer’s shady influence is behind Jay Inslee’s energy policies as well.
What is happening in Washington? (Hayes is Cylvia Hayes - Gov. Kitzhaber's fiancé)
Hayes was Steyer’s main driver of extreme energy policies in Oregon. In Washington, that distinction goes to Jay Manning, a well-known Democrat operative who formerly served as the Director of Ecology and as Chief of Staff to former Governor Christine Gregoire. He is also a former president of the Washington Environmental Council, which along with other environmental groups spent over $1 million to help elect Jay Inslee in 2012.
Manning’s law firm, Cascadia Law Group, was represented last year on Inslee’s Carbon Emissions Reduction Taskforce (CERT), which Inslee appointed last year to justify his desire to raise energy prices for Washington’s citizens and businesses. Manning’s law partner, Rod Brown, was the co-chair of CERT.
Despite Inslee’s claims throughout 2014 that he had no plan to jam through a gas price-raising fuel mandate by executive order – an issue that derailed any chance of the Legislature passing a transportation package last year – Manning submitted a policy development plan to Inslee’s top environmental advisor, Keith Phillips, in January 2013 that called for imposing a fuel mandate in Washington.
That $150,000 contract, which the Inslee administration signed off on, was funded not by the government but by outside environmental groups, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, one of the other groups linked to the Oregon scandal. Additionally, Manning’s work was underwritten by the Energy Foundation, recipient of Steyer’s cash.
Rockefeller and the Energy Foundation sponsored the Skamania environmental conference, where government employees from the three west coast states and British Columbia (including Inslee advisor Keith Phillips) met with Manning and environmental donors. Those attendees, including a representative from the Steyer-backed Energy Foundation, had the chance to give their input on Inslee’s green energy policies.
It was at this meeting that the Inslee administration informed those donors that Inslee planned to jam through a fuel mandate by executive order in the first quarter of 2015 – which has now come to pass.
Dirty money, dirty politics - a lot more at the site.
There is also a good article at The Seattle Times:
Inslee a student of California’s carbon-cap lessons
Some of the oil companies are behind this move as they are heavily invested in the carbon credit programs. They are getting very rich on our tax dollars. Carbon is our friend, not a demon. Carbon Dioxide is plant food.