OLYMPIA, Wash. – President Joe Biden in the White House before dropping out of the 2024 race. Now that Vice President Harris is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, could Washington’s governor still be part of a future administration?
Inslee has been considered a leader on climate issues within his party for well over a decade. He emerged as a national figure on climate issues in 2019 by running for president as an issue candidate arguing for a comprehensive federal response to the climate emergency.
After retiring his presidential campaign early in the 2020 election cycle, the Washington governor was floated as a potential Biden cabinet nominee to lead the US Department of Energy or Environmental Protection Agency.
Ultimately, he stayed home and focused his political efforts on which projects decreasing Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions by 95% by 2050.
Now that he is Inslee is poised to reenter private life in early 2025. If Harris wins the November election, it’s unclear whether she will continue Biden’s consideration of Inslee as a member of the next administration. However, it is clear that Inslee views his CCA platform as mirroring Biden and Harris’s.
“The Biden-Harris administration is taking action to address pollution from landfills. Here in WA, funding from our Climate Commitment Act is already helping landfills install technology to capture methane and keep our air cleaner and healthier,” Inslee said via social media.
Mike Faulk, the deputy communications director for the Office of the Governor, told NonStop Local that it was not appropriate for Inslee’s office to offer comment given that it is staffed by public employees.
Harris’s campaign has yet to respond to an email asking if Inslee is being considered for a leadership position.
Biden’s comment on a future position for Inslee is now surrounded by a different context than when it was uttered during a private fundraiser in early May. The vice president just over 100 days before the 2024 federal election and a . For now, Harris seems focused on uniting Democrats moving into the Fall.
“In the next 100 days, we have work to do,” Harris said on social media Sunday. “We have doors to knock on, we have phone calls to make, and we have an election to win.”
