Jay Inslee

A weekend report from Congressional Quarterly, the newspaper that focuses on Washington, D.C. politics, mentioned Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) as one of three leading candidates for secretary of the interior should Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) be elected president.

Inslee, who has held his 1st District seat since 1999, has made environmental issues a priority of his tenure, and recently wrote a book on alternative energy.

CQ, who also brought up Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D-Mont.) as potential choices, recognizes Inslee's record, and says his selection would be a boon to environmental groups, even if it might cause some dismay among oil companies.

See what CQ had to say about Inslee below.

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted against the Wall Street bailout bill this morning by a count of 228-205. The split was bipartisan, with 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats joining forces to block the $700 billion supplement to the financial industry.

The Washington delegation was likewise split, though slightly more partisan with five of the six Democrats voting in favor of the bill, save for Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) who joined all three Republicans for the "no" vote.

DENVER - Green energy is a big deal in Washington politics, and one of its loudest cheerleaders is U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island), who even co-wrote a book on the subject, Apollo's Fire, late last year.

Inslee told PolitickerWA.com yesterday that he felt that the push for green energy, and the resulting shifts in the economy that would result from the actualization of a major shift, would help Chris Gregoire in her bid for re-election.

"Our governor, Christine Gregoire, is one of the leaders in America on this subject," Inslee said. "She has really led on global warming. She understands the economic potential on this."

DENVER -- Jay Inslee hit the ground running with a full head of steam.

"Boy is this a good time to be a Washington Democrat," U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee said when he took the stage at the Washington state delegation breakfast this morning. "I have never been so optimistic, I have never been so engaged, I have never been so motivated."

He pointed to George Bush's mishandling of Katrina, and Sen. John McCain refusing to vote on a deadlocked energy bill earlier this session as the reason for his fervor.

"I was so angry at George W. Bush during Katrina," Inslee said, "that I got on a plane and flew to the Astrodome. It is going to be Democrats who someday restore New Orleans, who restore education, who get universal health care. I believe that is what we are going to do. I believe that is our destiny."

DENVER -- As mentioned earlier, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and DNC Chair Howard Dean addressed the Washington delegation this morning along with Washington Democratic Chair Dwight Pelz and state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle), but the star power did not stop there.

Also speaking in attendence was Phil Angelides of the Apollo Alliance, a consortium of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders dedicated to creating a clean energy economy in America. Angelides, the 2006 Democratic nominee for governor of California, spoke highly of Inslee's progress in Congress on behalf of energy projects, and was sure to remind the room that his youngest daughter was currently attending the University of Washington.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Bainbridge Island) is participating in a bipartisan congressional debate on energy issues this morning along with seven other U.S. representatives from across the country.

See full information after the jump.

Washington's Congressional delegation spoke out in favor of today's decision by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' decision to re-open the bidding process for the Air Force KC-767 tankers. Airbus had won the initial contract, which would have cost the state's economy a significant amount of money, but the process was discovered to be flawed by the Government Accountability Office.

Representatives Brian Baird (D-03), Doc Hastings (D-04) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (D-05) have yet to speak on the matter. Links to and excerpts from the rest of the state's elected officials statements are below.

Washington's full delegation, with the exception of Rep. Brian Baird (D-Vancouver) spoke out on the Government Accountability Office's decision today to uphold the protest against the decision making process that led to a US Air Force tanker contract to go to Airbus over Boeing earlier this year.

The group unanimously celebrated the GAO's decision because of initial unfairness in the decision making process, and used their statements as an I-told-you-so to those who supported and helped usher the deal through.

"It has been clear all along that the process was flawed, as evidenced by the clear recommendations made by the GAO," said Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Auburn). "This is a great victory for Boeing, Washington state and every American who values our nation's economic and homeland security."

Read all available statements below the jump.

Presidents have (very) occassionaly favored Washingtonians with prominent appointments. Our senators' replies to whether they wanted to be vice president led us to look into other Washingtonians in presidential administrations.

Washington's superdelegate count stands at five for Obama, five for Clinton and seven undecided. State Republican deciders may know something the Democrats don't know, since they've been campaigning against Obama, without a single mention on Clinton in recent letters. The Republican decidee is coming to town, and you can meet him for dinner for only $33,100.