It's happening! https://www.axios.com/green-new-deal-ocasio-cortez-markey-0d47bdbc-1180-4eb5-b010-6ed60f943cd4.html Exclusive: Ocasio-Cortez, Markey to unveil Green New Deal bill Amy Harder 13 hours ago Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) are set to unveil legislation laying out a “Green New Deal” as soon as next week, Axios has learned. Driving the news: A spokeswoman for Markey confirmed the offices are working on legislation, but said there is no final text and timing isn’t final yet for next week. A request to Ocasio-Cortez’s office wasn’t immediately returned. Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, also said legislation is due as soon as Wednesday or Thursday of next week. The youth-led group has been at the forefront of the Green New Deal movement. The big picture: The Green New Deal is a set of vague, but broad progressive policy goals seeking to transform the economy in the name of fighting climate change. It has risen from obscurity to prominence since the November election, with Ocasio-Cortez, a rising progressive star, leading the charge. Democrats eyeing presidential runs — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris — are backing the general concept of the Green New Deal, which is sure to play a role in the 2020 primary. Details: It’s unclear to what extent the proposal will adhere to a draft legislative document circulating that describes the policy, which dates back to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign website. That document includes a goal of 100% renewable electricity within 10 years (up from 17% today), a federal jobs guarantee for people working in the low-carbon transition, and universal healthcare. It’s light on details on how that would be funded and is also silent on whether the policy includes a price on carbon dioxide emissions, long considered central to climate change policy. Between the lines: The two Democrats leading the proposal represent a bridge between the old and new guard progressives. Markey was co-author of the last big climate-change legislation Congress considered a decade ago, while Ocasio-Cortez is the highest profile member of a new crop of House progressives. Go deeper: 2020 pressure for Green New Deal Democrats left turn on climate change Anatomy of climate change policy Spoiler
Booker signs on: Sen. Cory Booker joined the call Friday for a "Green New Deal" to attack climate change, his latest appeal to the Democrats' most liberal wing as he considers running for president in 2020. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, an incoming congresswoman and darling of the left, has called on Congress to take an aggressive approach to climate issues that rivals the economic New Deal that President Franklin Roosevelt implemented to battle the Great Depression. Booker’s endorsement comes as the former Newark mayor tries to counter the image that he is too aligned with the party's corporate interests, including Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry. That criticism regularly shows up in comment threads on Booker's social media posts, and it could be a drag if he competes in a field of 2020 candidates that includes fellow Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, among others. https://www.northjersey.com/story/n...GV5ZaA9eVKCmMUPokdZawvXQKz259QdqitE_tweYkQdso
Wouid love to see this get pushed to Committee and start a series of hearings with renewable energy businesss leaders, scientists, etc. The House has the power now to start putting campaign slogan into real legislative practice even if the Senate and President won’t sign anything into law you do out of spite and fossil fuel special interests. Still they should bring this bill to committe and hold hearings.
"A Sensible Climate Change Solution, Borrowed From Sweden": "Historically, the antinuclear movement didn’t emerge from environmental concerns, which is why arguments for nuclear’s environmental advantages often fall on deaf ears. The movement originated out of a panic among European and American intellectuals in the 1950s and ’60s about overpopulation, expressed most luridly in such popular books as the entomologist Paul Ehrlich’s 1969 'The Population Bomb.' They believed more power plants would exacerbate human density and urban growth. But nuclear power champions like Alvin Weinberg, the longtime director of America’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, countered that nuclear could supply energy enough to forestall the social collapse the neo-Malthusians feared. In the end, the green revolution and the demographic transition that followed third-world economic development met food needs and limited population growth, now predicted to level off at 10 billion by 2100. But by then nuclear power was anathema to the Democratic Party and American and European Greens, a tragic misalignment of liberal values. The tide may be turning. Politics may catch up with necessity. But the 'Green New Deal' recently championed in Congress includes even existing nuclear power production only grudgingly, and promotes the notion that 'A Bright Future' disputes — that 100 percent renewables can save the day." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/...uture-joshua-s-goldstein-staffan-a-qvist.html
an update on where the bill stands today: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/04/green-new-deal-fossil-fuels-1142544
It’s just madness to expect to be 100% renewable energy within a decade or two. I’m a big proponent of investing in our electric grid and hardening our coasts and river systems (Mississippi flooding has increased).
it's happening For months, the term Green New Deal has been bandied about by Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail for president as their catchall phrase for a sweeping effort to halt runaway climate change. On Thursday, the slogan got some meat on its bones as Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) prepared to introduce a framework outlining the goals of a sweeping climate pact going forward — and stop other Democrats from defining the Green New Deal however they wanted. Their measure already has the backing of four Democratic senators who have launched bids for the 2020 presidential nomination. But it is already being lampooned by Republicans — though embraced by progressives — for its broad aims on things unrelated to climate, including increased access to housing, health care and education for lower-income communities. “This is really about providing justice for communities and just transitions for communities,” Ocasio-Cortez told NPR in an interview Thursday morning. “So really the heart of the Green New Deal is about social justice.” Ocasio-Cortez and Markey form a notable pairing: The former leveraged her political stardom to galvanize progressives around a demand for a comprehensive climate plan while the latter brings gravitas to the proposal as one of the original sponsors of Barack Obama's ultimately unsuccessful cap-and-trade plan The proposal is a nonbinding resolution, but its aims are ambitious. The Democratic resolution calls for the United States to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions within ten years by “dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources.” It stands as a stark counterpoint to the Trump administration's downplaying of the scientific consensus behind climate change, as it has rolled back rules designed to contain global warming and withdrawn from the Paris climate accord aimed at reducing global pollution. The five-page resolution is not confined to climate change, however. It promotes a plethora of progressive ideals — like housing, health care, education, unions and indigenous rights, which are only indirectly related to Democratic climate desires. “The resolution is clear: We need to move to renewable energy as fast as possible,” said Stephen O'Hanlon, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement that has agitated for such a strategy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...b37cf1b326b66eb098641/?utm_term=.2893a8ca7b97
CNN reporting that Nancy Pelosi "threw some serious shade" on AOC's Green New Deal, "or whatever they call it": (CNN) Thursday is a big day for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The New York freshman Democrat, who has rapidly become one of the biggest stars in her party, will formally introduce her much-touted "Green New Deal" -- a package of legislation aimed at, among other things, addressing the threat posed by climate change. Nancy Pelosi isn't all that impressed. Asked about the "Green New Deal" in an interview with Politico on Wednesday, Pelosi dropped this amazing bit of shade on it: "It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?" I mean. Pelosi knows exactly what she's doing here. Her utter dismissiveness of the "Green New Deal" -- and, by extension, AOC, who is the member most closely identified with it, is entirely intentional. Pelosi knows that AOC is a rising national power -- particularly among the most activist and liberal left. Given Ocasio-Cortez's profile -- and her influence among young, liberal members -- Pelosi knows she can't just ignore what the New York Democrat says and does. But she isn't going to kowtow to AOC either. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/politics/pelosi-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal/index.html more at the link
thankfully we a have a system of checks and balances that prevents a nut like this from imposing her utopian vision on us. This is the sort of stuff that led to the deaths of tens of millions in communist states.
what could possibly go wrong? OCASIO-CORTEZ: FIXING GLOBAL WARMING REQUIRES ‘MASSIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION’ ‘We have tried their approach for 40 years — to let the private sector take care of it’ Feb 7, 2019 10:03 AM By Tom Elliott https://news.grabien.com/story-ocasio-cortez-fixing-global-warming-requires-massive-governm
seriously? if the green dreamers try to eliminate nuclear power, there is NO way we make any progress on climate. no way.
I don't actually disagree with that . . . but, let me ask a question. And not that this an "either-or" in reality, I am just posing this as an "either-or" question: Which is the more significant environmental problem/challenge that we face? Climate change or nuclear power waste/failures problems? (And again, I realize these are not mutually exclusive in reality, I just wonder how you'd rank these in a 1, 2 ordinal ranking.)
we may have to shut this thread down. If the early returns are accurate, the Green New Deal isn't going to have much of a shelf life. The 10 Most Insane Requirements Of The Green New Deal The Green New Deal isn't just un-America, it's also completely bonkers. By David Harsanyi FEBRUARY 7, 2019 Note: Ocasio-Cortez’s office has taken down their page describing the Green New Deal. A number of Democratic Party presidential hopefuls — including Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julián Castro, and Beto O’Rourke, for starters — have already endorsed or expressed support for the “Green New Deal” (GND). Today, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey dropped details about her plan. It is not hyperbole to contend that GND is likely the most ridiculous and un-American plan that’s ever been presented by an elected official to voters. Not merely because it would necessitate a communist strongman to institute, but also because the societal cost are unfathomable. The risible historic analogies Markey and Ocasio-Cortez rely on, the building of the interstate highway system or moon landing, are nothing but trifling projects compared to a plan overhauls modernity by voluntarily destroying massive amounts of wealth and technology. That is the GND. While some of the specifics need to be ironed out, the plan’s authors assure that this “massive transformation of our society” needs some “clear goals and a timeline.” The timeline is ten years. Here are some of the goals: Ban affordable energy. GND calls for the elimination of all fossil fuel energy production, the lifeblood of American industry and life, which includes not only all oil but also natural gas — one of the cheapest sources of American energy, and one of the reasons the United States has been able to lead the world in carbon-emissions reduction. Eliminate nuclear energy. The GND also calls for eliminating all nuclear power, one of the only productive and somewhat affordable “clean” energy sources available to us, in 11 years. This move would purge around 20 percent of American energy production so you can rely on intermittent wind for your energy needs. Eliminate 99 percent of cars. To be fair, under the GND, everyone will need to retrofit their cars with Flintstones-style foot holes or pedals for cycling. The authors state that the GND would like to replace every “combustion-engine vehicle” — trucks, airplanes, boats, and 99 percent of cars — within ten years. Charging stations for electric vehicles will be built “everywhere,” though how power plants will provide the energy needed to charge them is a mystery. Gut and rebuild every building in America. Markey and Cortez want to “retrofit every building in America” with “state of the art energy efficiency.” I repeat, “every building in America.” That includes every home, factory, and apartment building, which will all need, for starters, to have their entire working heating and cooling systems ripped out and replaced with…well, with whatever technology Democrats are going invent in their committee hearings, I guess. Eliminate air travel. GND calls for building out “highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” Good luck Hawaii! California’s high-speed boondoggle is already in $100 billion dollars of debt, and looks to be one of the state’s biggest fiscal disasters ever. Amtrak runs billions of dollars in the red (though, as we’ll see, trains will also be phased out). Imagine growing that business model out to every state in America? A government-guaranteed job. The bill promises the United States government will provide every single American with a job that includes a “family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and a pension.” You can imagine that those left in the private sector would be funding these through some unspecified “massive” taxation. On the bright side, when you’re foraging for food, your savings will be worthless. Free education for life. GND promises free college or trade schools for every American. A salubrious diet. The GND promises the government will provide “healthy food” to every American (because there are no beans or lettuce in your local supermarket, I guess). A house. The GND promises that the government will provide, “safe, affordable, adequate housing” for every American citizen. I call dibs on an affordable Adams Morgan townhouse. Thank you, Ocasio-Cortez. Free money. The GND aims to provide, and I am not making this up, “economic security” for all who are “unable or unwilling” to work. Just to reiterate: if you’re unwilling to work, the rest of us will have your back. Bonus insanity: Ban meat. Ocasio-Cortez admits that we can’t get zero emissions in 10 years “because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.” The only way to get rid of farting cows is to get rid of beef. The GND uses the word “massive” to explain the size “investments” (formerly known as “taxes”) 13 times. How will we pay for this plan? “The same way we did the New Deal, the 2008 bank bailouts and extend quantitative easing,” say Markey and Cortez, who earned her degree in economics at an institution of higher learning that should be immediately decertified. The plan itself seems to insinuate that billionaires can pay for the whole thing. Of course, best case scenario, it is estimated that instituting a top marginal tax rate of 70 percent would raise a little more than $700 billion over that decade. She does not explain how we’re going to raise the other 20 bazillion dollars it will cost to tear down modernity. Cortez and Markey claim that 92 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans support the Green New Deal. I’m not sure where that number is derived. But ask them again when government agents come to take out their water heater. David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist. He is the author of the new book,First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History with the Gun, From the Revolution to Today. Follow him on Twitter. http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/07/ten-most-insane-requirements-green-new-deal/
