Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Releases Green New Deal Outline
By Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR
07 January 19
Whether it's a deadly cold snap or a hole in an Antarctic glacier or a
terrifying new report, there seem to be constant reminders now of the
dangers that climate change poses to humanity.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., think
they have a start to a solution. Thursday they are introducing a framework
defining what they call a "Green New Deal" - what they foresee as a massive
policy package that would remake the U.S. economy and, they hope, eliminate
all U.S. carbon emissions.
That's a really big - potentially impossibly big - undertaking.
"Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near
the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us,"
Ocasio-Cortez told NPR's Steve Inskeep in an interview airing Thursday on
Morning Edition.
She added: "It could be part of a larger solution, but no one has actually
scoped out what that larger solution would entail. And so that's really what
we're trying to accomplish with the Green New Deal."
What is the Green New Deal?
In very broad strokes, the Green New Deal legislation laid out by
Ocasio-Cortez and Markey sets goals for some drastic measures to cut carbon
emissions across the economy, from electricity generation to transportation
to agriculture. In the process, it aims to create jobs and boost the
economy.
In that vein, the proposal stresses that it aims to meet its ambitious goals
while paying special attention to groups like the poor, disabled and
minority communities that might be disproportionately affected by massive
economic transitions like those the Green New Deal calls for.
Importantly, it's a nonbinding resolution, meaning that even if it were to
pass (more on the challenges to that below), it wouldn't itself create any
new programs. Instead, it would potentially affirm the sense of the House
that these things should be done in the coming years.
Lawmakers pass nonbinding resolutions for things as simple as congratulating
Super Bowl winners, as well as to send political messages - for example,
telling the president they disapprove of his trade policies, as the Senate
did in summer 2018.
What are the specifics of that framework?
The bill calls for a "10-year national mobilizations" toward accomplishing a
series of goals that the resolution lays out.
(Note: Ocasio-Cortez's office released an updated version of the bill on
Thursday. The earlier version, which we had included in a prior version of
this story, is still available here.)
Among the most prominent, the deal calls for "meeting 100 percent of the
power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and
zero-emission energy sources." The ultimate goal is to stop using fossil
fuels entirely, Ocasio-Cortez's office told NPR, as well as to transition
away from nuclear energy.
In addition, the framework, as described in the legislation as well as a
blog post and "FAQs" from Ocasio-Cortez's office, calls for a variety of
other lofty goals:
."upgrading all existing buildings" in the country for energy efficiency;
.working with farmers "to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas
emissions... as much as is technologically feasible" (while supporting
family farms and promoting "universal access to healthy food");
."Overhauling transportation systems" to reduce emissions - including
expanding electric car manufacturing, building "charging stations
everywhere," and expanding high-speed rail to "a scale where air travel
stops becoming necessary";
.A guaranteed job "with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and
medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security" for every American;
."High-quality health care" for all Americans.
Which is to say: the Green New Deal framework combines big
climate-change-related ideas with a wish list of progressive economic
proposals that, taken together, would touch nearly every American and
overhaul the economy.
Are those ideas doable?
Many in the climate science community, as well as Green New Deal proponents,
agree that saving the world from disastrous effects of climate change
requires aggressive action.
And some of the Green New Deal's goals are indeed aggressive. For example,
Ocasio-Cortez told NPR that "in 10 years, we're trying to go
carbon-neutral."
According to Jesse Jenkins, a postdoctoral environmental fellow at Harvard's
Kennedy School, that may be an unreachable goal.
"Where we need to be targeting really is a net-zero carbon economy by about
2050, which itself is an enormous challenge and will require reductions in
carbon emissions much faster than have been achieved historically," he said.
"2030 might be a little bit early to be targeting."
Similarly, removing combustible engines from the roads or expanding
high-speed rail to largely eliminate air travel would require nothing short
of revolutionizing transportation.
Likewise, some of the more progressive economic policies - universal health
care and a job guarantee, for example - while popular among some Democrats,
would also be very difficult to implement and transition into.
On top of all that, implementing all of these policies could costs trillions
upon trillions of dollars.
Altogether, the Green New Deal is a loose framework - it does not lay out
guidance on how to implement these policies.
Rather, the idea is that Ocasio-Cortez and Markey will "begin work
immediately on Green New Deal bills to put the nuts and bolts on the plan
described in this resolution."
And again, all of this is hypothetical - it would be tough to implement and
potentially extremely expensive... if it passed.
So did the idea of a Green New Deal start with Ocasio-Cortez?
Not at all.
While the Green New Deal has in the last year or so grown central to
progressive Democrats' policy conversations, the idea of a Green New Deal
itself is well over a decade old. Environmentalists were talking about it as
far back as 2003, when the term popped up in a San Francisco Chronicle
article about an environmentalist conference.
It gained traction with a 2007 New York Times column from Thomas Friedman,
where he used the phrase to describe the scope of energy investments he
thought would be necessary to slow climate change on a large scale.
The phrase was also used around President Obama's 2009 stimulus, which had
around $90 billion worth of environmental initiatives.
While the idea gained some currency in Europe and also in the Green Party,
it wasn't until after the 2016 election that it really gained broad
popularity on the left in the U.S. (Vox's Dave Roberts has a more thorough
history here).
This latest iteration is different both in the political energy that it has
amassed and the grand scope it is taking. While it was a product of the
progressive activist community, Ocasio-Cortez has been perhaps the most
visible proponent of the plan, and has helped it gain nationwide attention.
So will it pass?
That looks unlikely.
Yes, there's some energy for it on the left - some House Democrats have
already said they will support the bill. However, there are indications
House leadership isn't prioritizing the idea as much as those more liberal
Democrats would like - Speaker Nancy Pelosi frustrated Green New Deal
proponents by not giving them the kind of committee they wanted to put the
policies together.
After the deal's Thursday release, she also cast the plan as simply one of
any number of environmental proposals the House might consider.
"It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,"
Pelosi told Politico. "The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody
knows what it is, but they're for it right?"
In addition, it's easy to see how the bill could be dangerous for moderate
House Democrats, many of whom come from swing districts and may be loath to
touch such a progressive proposal.
Among Republicans - even those worried about climate change - the package,
with its liberal economic ideas, will also likely be a nonstarter.
"Someone's going to have to prove to me how that can be accomplished because
it looks to me like for the foreseeable future we're gonna be using a
substantial amount of fossil fuels," said Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla.,
co-chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, speaking to NPR before
the Green New Deal's text was released.
For his part, Rooney is in favor of a carbon tax, a policy he helped propose
with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in November. Information from
Ocasio-Cortez's office says that the Green New Deal could include a carbon
tax, but that it would be "a tiny part" of the total package of policies.
Meanwhile, there's little chance of a Green New Deal getting a vote in the
Republican-controlled Senate.
If it's not going to pass and it's not even binding, why is it worth even
talking about?
It's worth talking about because it already is a politically powerful idea
among Democrats.
Already, presidential candidates are being asked whether they support the
idea of a Green New Deal, meaning it's easy to see the issue becoming a
litmus test for some voters in both the 2020 congressional elections and the
presidential election.
To more liberal Democrats, the prospect of such an ambitious economic and
environmental package at the center of the 2020 campaign may be particularly
energizing.
"I think it's like a really weird instinct that the Democratic Party
develops to not be exciting intentionally," said Sean McElwee, co-founder of
the progressive think tank Data for Progress. "Most of politics is getting
people excited enough to show up and vote for you. And I think that a Green
New Deal and Medicare for All - these are ideas that are big enough to get
people excited and show up to vote for you."
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez says that a policy like the Green New Deal could
get voters excited enough to pressure their Congress members to support it.
"I do think that when there's a wide spectrum of debate on an issue, that is
where the public plays a role. That is where the public needs to call their
member of Congress and say, 'This is something that I care about,' " she
told NPR, adding, "Where I do have trust is in my colleagues' capacity to
change and evolve and be adaptable and listen to their constituents."
That said, it's easy to see how a Green New Deal litmus test could backfire
on that front, endangering some Democrats - particularly in swing districts.
But, it's not just about national politics. The national-level energy for a
Green New Deal could boost efforts in cities and states. New York Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, for example, has been pushing a Green New Deal in his state.
Aside from the politics, of course, there's the fact that climate change
remains an impending threat - one for which the world has yet to come up
with a fix.
"It's a big legislation because it's a huge [expletive] problem! We're all
going to die," said McElwee. "Every week it seems like the the risks of
climate change become more real, and the amount of devastation it is going
to wreak upon humanity becomes larger, and that means we have to do bigger
things."
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