Rookie Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), bright, brash, and ambitious, has the left bank of the Potomac abuzz with her nascent “green new deal” (GND). Before even being sworn in to the 116th Congress, she launched a proposal to commit the U.S. to 100% renewable energy within 10 years, along with an economic stimulus including a jobs guarantee program, and a push for environmental justice, and universal health care.
Some 600 environmental groups, including some familiar names such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and 350.org, are enthusiastic about the GND, and sent a letter to all members of Congress. They endorsed the GND and said it should include, among other things, a ban on U.S. crude oil exports; an end to fossil fuel subsidies (but not for renewables); an end to federal leases for coal, oil, and gas; and a phase-out of internal combustion vehicles by 2040.
But the GND so far may be more notable for the groups that have not signed on. Those include the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, Moms Clean Air Force, Environment America; and the National Audubon Society. Also absent from the GND, according to the New Republic, are Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and Tom Steyer’s NextGen America.
There is considerable confusion about what is in and what is out in the GND, and considerable jockeying is likely if the idea gets beyond its current aspirational stage. The left supporters of the GND want to go far beyond seriously reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Dominique Browning of Moms told the New Republic that the letter to Congress rejects market-based approaches, such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade rules, denouncing them as “corporate schemes that place profits over community burdens and benefits.” She noted that “equity and environmental integrity factors could be built into those mechanisms.”
The letter also specifies that “any definition of renewable energy must also exclude all combustion-based power generation, nuclear, biomass energy, large scale hydro and waste-to-energy technologies.” It also rejects carbon capture and storage. That absolutism creates wide –spread instant opposition.
Nuclear is likely to be a major sticking point. Ocasio-Cortez has said she won’t rule out nuclear, but most of the environmental groups that support her have anti-nuclear roots. Congress, on the other hand, has a long record of supporting nuclear power. Most important, notes an analysis by Morning Consult, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the new chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, considers nuclear critical as an electricity source with no carbon dioxide emissions. The same is true of Rep. Bobby rush (D-Ill.), chairman of the Energy Subcommittee.
Any GND legislation would have to go through the Energy and Commerce Committee (and would face certain death in the Senate). Ocasio-Cortez lobbied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to create a select global warming committee, with full legislative power. She failed, and Pelosi agreed to a limited committee with little clout. All legislative action would come before Pallone.
Even some of Ocasio-Cortez’s incoming progressive colleagues have doubts about the GND. Rep. Sean Caster (D-Ill.), who has extensive real-world experience in energy efficiency, told The Quad Report in an interview that the GND “Might be great politically,” but pushing to replace all fossil fuels with renewables is more aspirational than achievable and may have unintended consequences. “I don’t care whether or not we use renewables,” he said, “I care that we get the carbon down as quickly as possible.”
When Casten was elected, ousting a six-term conservative Republican, Bill McKibben of 350.org said that Casten “is going to be one of the most climate-savvy folks in Congress right from the get-go.”
There is also a growing critique that the GND represents “been there, done that, didn’t work.” Liberal journalist Michael Grunwald, writing in Vox, commented, “If you haven’t heard of Obama’s Green New Deal, that’s because it was wrapped into an even larger and more controversial piece of legislation: The $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the stimulus.”
Obama, writes Grunwald, “grafted his green agenda onto a response to an economic emergency, while Ocasio-Cortez and other left-of-Obama activists are arguably trying to graft their economic agenda, including a government job guarantee and even universal health care, onto a response to a climate emergency.”
When it comes to the Obama green stimulus, what most remember, says Grunwald, is the Solyndra fiasco, “the notorious California solar company that defaulted on a $535 million Energy Department loan.” He quotes Cathy Zoi, one of Obama’s energy advisers, “A big part of politics is storytelling, and we didn’t tell our story very well. Our investments really catalyzed market transformation, but that message didn’t get out.”
Given the GOP’s general reluctance to deal with global warming and the president’s scorn, the short-term political prospects for the GND are unfavorable. Grunwald says that “the debate over the Green New Deal is likely to be an exercise in messaging rather than policymaking until 2021 at the earliest.”
— Kennedy Maize