Washington governor gets in 2020 race

SEATTLE — Declaring climate change the nation’s most pressing issue, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee began his 2020 Democratic presidential bid on Friday with a promise to refocus American government and society.

“It is time for our nation to set a new priority,” Inslee told supporters gathered at a solar panel business in Seattle. “This is truly our moment. It is our moment to solve America’s most daunting challenge and make it the first, foremost and paramount duty of the United States … to defeat climate change.”

The 68-year-old former congressman becomes the first governor to enter a race dominated by sitting U.S. senators.

Inslee says his emphasis on combating climate change sets him apart from his competitors and from Republican President Donald Trump.

Inslee is framing climate action as an economic opportunity, not just a moral imperative. He argued that public and private investments in clean energy are a net boon for working Americans that would create “millions of jobs,” from building “electric cars in Michigan” to installing solar panels on homes in every state.

Inslee has governed Washington state as an unabashed liberal, promoting clean energy, gay rights, abortion rights, environmental preservation, tighter gun restrictions and more spending for education and job training. In Congress, he voted against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and for a ban on certain military-style guns.

Most recently, he’s called for a state-based public option health insurance plan in Washington that he says is a “step toward universal health care.”