Jay Inslee: “We essentially gave away oil that belongs to the citizens of the United States, and gave it away with no royalties. It…”

“We essentially gave away oil that belongs to the citizens of the United States, and gave it away with no royalties. It was a giant, giant giveaway program. And subsidies in certain circumstances are appropriate for nascent growing industries, but this is a mature industry. There was no reason to give a company that made $20 billion profit last year more of our taxpayers. You are paying twice when that happens. You are paying at the pump, and then you are paying on April 15 when you are paying taxes that are given to these oil and gas companies. I want to just touch on your wind sample. Today I had the Director of the Bonneville Power Administration that runs the electrical grid in the Northwest today, and he was telling me that wind power today is cheaper, cheaper than essentially any other system that we have to generate electricity, at least in the Pacific Northwest, cheaper than coal even.”