The GOP congressional candidate says the nation must get over its oil addiction.

There are few in Congress who talk about protecting the environment more than Rep. Jay Inslee.

But that’s all it is – just talk, according to Inslee’s Republican challenger Larry Ishmael.

“While (Inslee) has been talking, I’ve been doing, and doing much more than he,” said Ishmael, who recently moved from Issaquah to Redmond, which hems the southeast border of the First Congressional District. The district also includes parts of north Seattle, Edmonds, Silverdale, North Kitsap and Bainbridge Island, where Inslee resides.

“Inslee has, by his vote over the last six years, gotten nothing done for the environment,” Ishmael said.

Ishmael spoke last week on Bainbridge at a luncheon hosted by the Bainbridge Republican Women.

The former president of the Issaquah School Board outlined a platform focused on improving academic and test score performances in public schools and boosting government efficiency.

He touched upon common Republican talking points, including “the need for less government and more accountability” but took a wide turn into political territory unfamiliar to most in his party.

“We have a gluttonous demand for oil,” he said. “We have to break that. We need to think about ethanol and biodiesel. We need a congressman who will ask these questions.”

Ishmael said the federal government should encourage greater reliance on cleaner-burning fuels produced in the United States. This, he said, will improve environmental health while making the country more fuel self-sufficient.

He said it was the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil that sparked the invasion of Iraq.

“It wasn’t about ‘weapons of mass destruction,’” he said. “If it was, I’d be for attacking North Korea.”

While discussing the need for greater reliance on alternative fuel sources, Ishmael echoed other Republicans in calling for oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“It’s not popular here to talk about drilling in ANWR, but for our national security, we have to consider this,” he said.

Ishmael’s form of environmentalism is rooted in the fiscal pragmatism of the corporate world. As founder of Suasor Consulting Group, Ishmael has specialized in the privatization of overseas government services, including road construction, utility distribution, vehicle inspections and waste disposal. Many of these privatization projects made for cleaner water and air in some of Latin America’s most polluted cities.

Ishmael was involved in projects to capture methane gas at landfills for use as fuel and enacting tougher vehicle testing standards in Central and South America. In Brazil, Ishmael helped reroute and treat sewage that had been pumped from new high-rise apartments into a mountain lake near Rio de Janeiro.

“The raw sewage was killing the lake,” he said. “It was a giant cesspool and it then went out to the ocean. We cut off all the sewage connections so it started to back up the plumbing in the high-rises.

“When that happened, the owners were willing to pay a bunch to tap into the new sewer lines.”

Ishmael highlights this work as a defining difference between himself and Inslee.

“I’ve been working for the environment way longer than Inslee’s been talking about it,” he said. “I’m a man of action. He’s a man of talk.”

Inslee, responding Monday to Ishmael’s assertions, said he welcomed the possibility of more Republicans who share his views on the environment and alternative energy sources.

“I certainly appreciate that (Ishmael) thinks my ideas are good ones,” he said. “Maybe eventually I can count on his vote.”

Inslee also welcomed Ishmael into the district; the challenger until recently resided in Washington’s 8th congressional district.

“He’s from Issaquah but I certainly welcome all new citizens,” he said.

Inslee admitted many of his goals for environmental protections and cleaner-burning fuels have not yet been met. Inslee’s comprehensive New Apollo Energy Act, which would establish market incentives for the use of clean energy technologies, has stalled for over a year. But this has more to do with Republican opposition than the proposed legislation’s merits, he said.

“The Republican leadership is in the thralls of the oil and gas companies,” he said. “They prevent these measures from ever getting to a vote.”

But this may soon change, Inslee said, as many Republican-held congressional seats are wobbling under voter discontent over the war in Iraq, high fuel prices and other issues.

“We could see major changes in Congress,” he said. “It could be a game-changer.”