Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts unveiled their "Green New Deal" resolution Thursday, which outlines the definition of the massive piece of legislation the two hope will tackle a litany of issues related to the US's role in global climate change.
"Climate change and our environmental challenges are one of the biggest existential threats to our way of life. Not just as a nation, but as a world," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said at a news conference outside of the Capitol Building.
"What this resolution is doing is saying this is our first step. Our first step is to define the problem and define the scope of the solution," she added. "And so we're here to say that small, incremental policy solutions are not enough. They can be part of a solution but they are not the solution unto itself."
Mr. Markey added, “We will save all of creation by engaging in massive job creation.”
Mr. Markey also predicted more Democrats would sign on and said even some Republicans may back the plan.
"This is now a voting issue across the country," he said. "The green generation has risen up and they are saying they want this issue solved" as one of the top two or three issues in the 2020 election, Mr. Markey said.
The sweeping resolution includes a 10-year commitment to convert “100 percent of the country’s power demands” to “clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources”; to upgrade “all existing buildings” to meet energy efficiency requirements; and to expand high-speed rail so broadly that would most air travel would be rendered obsolete.
The initiative, introduced as nonbinding resolutions in the House and Senate, is tethered to an infrastructure program that its authors say could create millions of new “green jobs,” while guaranteeing health care, “a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security” to every American.
Modeled on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in the 1930s, the resolution will not move in its current form, but some ideas could advance as part of more modest legislation to address the climate crisis.
The legislation has become a key policy initiative for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New Yorker who, shortly after being elected in November, joined the Sunrise Movement to protest over the climate change issue in the office of then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She later paired up with Mr. Markey, who represents Massachusetts, to begin working on the legislation.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, surrounded by Mr. Markey and other congressional Democrats, said that the resolution is "comprehensive, it is thoughtful, it is compassionate and it is extremely economically strategic as well."
In an interview with NPR earlier Thursday, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said that although their proposed solutions are bold, they're "nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us to our country, to the world."
"And so while carbon taxes are nice, while things like cap and trade are nice, it's not what's going to save the planet. 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," she told "Morning Edition" co-host Steve Inskeep.
The resolution says that the deal will "promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression" to a dozen communities, including indigenous peoples, migrant communities and low-income workers.
"So really the heart of the Green New Deal is about social justice and it's about allowing and fighting for things like fully-funded pensions for coal miners in West Virginia, fighting for clean water in Flint, and fighting for the ability of indigenous peoples to take a leadership role in in where we're moving as a country," Ms. Ocasio-Cortez told Mr. Inskeep.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Ms. Pelosi said that while she hasn't yet seen the details of the proposal, "I do know that it's enthusiastic, and we welcome all the enthusiasm that's out there."
"I'm very excited about it all, and I welcome the Green New Deal and any other proposals," she added.
The speaker's comments are starkly different from what she said in an interview with Politico on Wednesday in which she told the paper that the deal "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?" she told Politico.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said she was not offended by Ms. Pelosi’s description of the Green New Deal, and also said the speaker offered her a seat on the select committee on climate change but that she declined it.
Republicans seized on the proposal with relish, portraying the entire resolution as absurd. Bob Salera, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the idea “zany.” The Republican National Committee derided it as “a socialist wish list.”
But Democratic candidates for the presidency did not shy away from it now that the details are emerging. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., quickly sent out a fundraising appeal, declaring, “For too long, we have been governed by lawmakers who are beholden to big oil and big coal. They have refused to act on climate change. So it’s on us to speak the truth, rooted in science fact, not science fiction.”
Democratic Sens. Kirstin Gillibrand of New York, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also co-sponsored the measure, which has early support from about 60 House and Senate Democrats.
For all of its audacity, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and Mr. Markey also steered clear of several thorny issues.
The resolution does not specify a date for eliminating planet-warming emissions, instead calling for the elimination of fossil fuels from major economic sectors “as much as technologically feasible.” It also avoids denouncing specific types of clean energy alternatives, specifically nuclear, which in the past has come under fire from climate change activists despite being a zero-carbon form of power. An early version of the resolution called for phasing out nuclear energy within a decade.
The resolution also sidesteps any discussion of carbon capture and storage technology, which Green New Deal supporters had previously criticized on the grounds that it would enable the continued use of fossil fuels.
Mr. Markey said the resolution is purposefully “silent on individual technologies.”
Instead the resolution calls for generating 100 percent of electricity through renewable sources like wind and solar in the next 10 years, eliminating greenhouse emissions in manufacturing and forestry “as much as is technologically feasible,” and re-engineering cars and trucks to end climate pollution.
The measure also includes social justice goals not usually attached to anti-pollution plans, like eradicating poverty by creating high-paid jobs.
The New York Times and The Associated Press contributed.
First Published: February 7, 2019, 9:41 p.m.
