Senate to Vote on 'Green New Deal' Next Week
Do you support or oppose the Green New Deal?
The Senate is expected to take up the Green New Deal resolution (S.J.Res. 8) next week after it completes its consideration of the nomination of Judge Bridget Bade to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
While House Democrats have been reluctant to bring up Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) version of the resolution for a vote, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will bring up an identical version of the resolutions she and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) drafted to give the Senate (and potentially the House) an opportunity to go on record.
What would it do?
The non-binding resolution would call for the federal to create a Green New Deal that combats climate change an income inequality over the course of the decade.
It’d aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, require all U.S. power demand to be met through renewable sources, upgrade all existing buildings to maximize energy efficiency standards (which would also apply to new buildings), and promote “justice and equity” for certain groups of people.
Additionally, the Green New Deal would call for:
- Eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector as much as technologically possible by investing in family farming, sustainable land use, and building a “more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food”.
- Eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as technologically possible by investing in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure & manufacturing, public transportation, and high-speed rail.
- Upgrading infrastructure by guaranteeing universal access to clean water, reducing risks posed by flooding, and ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by Congress addresses climate change.
It’d also aim to ensure the Green New Deal is developed through “transparent and inclusive consultation with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academic, and businesses.” Among those frontline and vulnerable communities are indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth.
As a non-binding resolution this legislation would have no cost, so the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doesn’t have the basis to develop a standard cost estimate for it. However, a rough estimate produced by a center-right think tank run by the former head of the CBO estimated the 10-year cost of the Green New Deal at between $51 trillion and $93 trillion.
What are both sides saying?
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has taken “great interest” in the Green New Deal and said, “we’ll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) called the planned vote a “cheap, cynical ploy”, while Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) referred to the upcoming vote on the Green New Deal resolution as “sabotage”.
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: iStock.com / aydinmutlu)
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