With much enthusiasm and fanfare, the highly-touted “Green New Deal” was introduced by liberal U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts and the indefatigable first-term Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, sensing the opposition has over-played its hand, now wants to bring it up for a vote by the full Senate. “Let’s get everyone on the record on this,” the Majority Leader said.
Yes, a splendid idea indeed. A Senate floor debate on the Green New Deal could be just the education this country needs to hear. Hopefully, the truth of the insidious vision of the Green New Deal, as extensively discussed by CFACT, will be more and better understood as both impractical nonsense and an enormous detriment to our prosperous American way of life.
Most politicians who sponsor resolutions or bills would be thrilled at such alacrity to have quick action on their proposals. Normally, Congress, especially the Senate, acts very slowly. But not Sen. Markey, who is crying foul at Sen. McConnell’s rapid maneuver. Markey asserted that McConnell, by calling a vote, is trying to “sabotage” his plan, and that the country instead needs to “have its first nation conversation on climate change in a decade.”
First “national conversation” on climate change in a decade? Has Sen. Markey been tied up on a boat anchored in Boston Harbor for the last ten years? “Climate change” has been the obsession of university professors, United Nations bureaucrats, Hollywood actors and most of the American media for more than three decades. It’s been the largest group think exercise in the history of humankind.
As has been documented by CFACT, the Green New Deal would recklessly transform the nation’s energy use from fossil fuels to 100 percent renewables in a scant dozen years – and it doesn’t just stop there. The label “Green” now applies to every other socialist fantasy, including single-payer health care, expansion of the welfare state, race and gender-based outcomes, guaranteed government jobs and income, and so much else.
Proponents of “climate change” have long believed that government must be bigger, the economy and private sector must be restricted, and that lifestyle and consumer preferences must be imposed on every American. Now, in the Green New Deal, they’ve admitted as much on paper for all to read.
Perhaps Sen. Markey realizes if more Americans outside of his home state of Massachusetts understand his Green New Deal, the less they will like it. For example, airplanes will not be running on renewable energy any time soon, and high-speed trains won’t be ready to replace them. Millions of American homes and buildings cannot, and will not, be retrofitted with green technology. Millions of Americans would like to hang onto their private health insurance. Millions more Americans would rather keep their current jobs in the energy sector and look askance at expanding public assistance that is envisioned in this brave new Green world.
To illustrate the unrealistic absurdity of the Green New Deal, one of many present day examples tell the story. The plan envisions high-speed trains becoming ubiquitous in America in place of cars and airplanes. Yet, the state of California, long governed by a bastion of environmental extremist politicians, has been trying for years to build “high-speed” rail, with little progress to show after billions of taxpayer dollars spent.
This week, California’s new Governor Gavin Newsom, as deep a shade of Green as they come by in Golden State, had to face up with reality and pull the plug on the planned bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The latest estimates for this train had costs of at least $77 billion for completion by 2033 – three years after the Green New Deal was suppose to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.
“Let’s be real,” Gov. Newsom said in his first state of the state address to California’s legislature. Let’s be real, indeed. Even a certified Green politician like Gavin Newsom can’t hide from such reality, nor can Sen. Markey, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, and the several Democratic politicians running for president who also have embraced the Green New Deal.
The demise of the California bullet train is a microcosm of why the entire Green New Deal is a proverbial house of cards. It will not work, and any attempt to impose it on the country will find it all come toppling over whenever the first breeze touches it.
Yes, let’s have a debate on the Senate floor regarding the Green New Deal. Let all see. Let Sen. Markey defend his vision, tell us how it will be implemented, and why he thinks it’s necessary. Conversely, let senators who oppose it spell out the Deal’s impracticalities and negative consequences it will have on average Americans.