Gone but Not Forgotten: The Green New Deal Resolution Sunk in the Senate on Tuesday.

March 27, 2019

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by Kelsey Tamborrino (Politico's Morning Energy) — The Green New Deal resolution sunk in the Senate on Tuesday. Now Senate Democrats will unveil their own Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, while House Republicans press ahead with their own push for a floor vote on the resolution.

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The Senate may have voted down the Green New Deal resolution, but expect the issue to stick around at least through the 2020 election. Senate Democrats plan to continue pushing today for Congress to respond to the "climate crisis," while House Republicans seek to promote an "all of the above" approach to energy.

Senate Democrats managed to mostly stick together , voting present to protest what they say was a political stunt by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Just three Democrats — Sens. Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema — and Independent Sen. Angus King voted with all Republicans against the proposal, Pro's Anthony Adragna reports.

"Make sure you don't kill it too much because I want to run against it," President Donald Trump said of the resolution Tuesday, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, who relayed the comments from a closed-door meeting with Senate Republicans.

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GOING AT IT ALONE: Senate Republicans wouldn't agree to form it, but Democrats are nevertheless forging ahead with their Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, with Sen. Brian Schatz chairing the unofficial panel. A group of nearly a dozen lawmakers will unveil their plan today (March 27, 2019) at 11:30 a.m. Sen. John Barrasso objected to the move on the floor to create the panel Tuesday before the Green New Deal vote.

THE HEAT IS ON: Now House Republicans are upping their pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take up the Green New Deal. Republican Whip Steve Scalise and Reps. Jeff Duncan, Markwayne Mullin and Jody Hice will hold a press conference this afternoon to introduce the House Energy Action Team, which is being touted as "a coalition of members who support the development, deployment, and efficient use of 'all of the above' energy resources" and oppose the Green New Deal. The team's first action item will be filing a discharge petition to bring the Green New Deal to the floor.

FIELD TRIP: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the original Green New Deal sponsor, has accepted an invitation from Republican Rep. Andy Barr to visit a coal mine in Eastern Kentucky, McClatchy reported Tuesday.

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(Energy Secretary Rick) Perry will speak before the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, days after Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander called for a "new Manhattan Project for Clean Energy." In his opening remarks, Alexander is expected to call on the federal government to "double its funding for energy research and keep the United States No. 1 in the world in advanced computing," according to an excerpt shared with ME. Alexander also wrote an op-ed for Fox News on Tuesday outlining his Manhattan Project pitch READ MORE

John Hickenlooper: The Green New Deal sets us up for failure. We need a better approach. (Washington Post)

The Energy 202: 'A political game.' 2020 Democrats explain why they didn't vote for Green New Deal (Washington Post)

Senate blocks Green New Deal (The Hill; includes VIDEO)

Excerpt from The Washington Post (John Hickenlooper): That is why I support the concept of a Green New Deal — the idea that we should launch multiple major federal initiatives to tackle climate change and reorient our economy around clean energy. The idea has been around for at least a decade and will be one of my highest priorities as president.

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The resolution sets unachievable goals. We do not yet have the technology needed to reach “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” in 10 years. That’s why many wind and solar companies don’t support it. There is no clean substitute for jet fuel.

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Amid this technological innovation, we need to ensure that energy is not only clean but also affordable. Millions of Americans struggle with “energy poverty.”

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Of course, I am not suggesting that industry can do it alone. My version of a Green New Deal would also involve historic federal investments and incentives in electric storage, modern transmission and science to nurture the industries that will serve as the pillars of the clean economy we need to save our planet. The federal government also must play a very active role through smart regulation and well-calibrated tax policy to shape the markets in which these firms compete.

The federal government should also build on what we have done in Colorado. In 2014, we became the first state to impose its own regulation on methane emissions, which are 25 times worse for climate change than carbon dioxide, and we did it by working with both environmentalists and industry. We implemented new standards for low-emission vehicles and expanded Colorado’s renewable energy standard, doubling the goal for rural electric producers. We also built public support for unprecedented expansions of light rail and the retrofitting of buildings to save energy. At the same time, we created more than 10,000 clean-energy jobs — just as we can create millions of clean-energy jobs across the country if we take the right steps.

Ocasio-Cortez and others have succeeded in galvanizing the country around climate change as never before. Now that we have this public support, it is imperative that we don’t abuse it. If climate change policy becomes synonymous in the U.S. psyche with higher utility bills, rising taxes and lost jobs, we will have missed our shot — and we might not get another one before it’s too late. Just as we responded to the crisis of polio and the space race, we need to bring the private and public sector together to save the planet. READ MORE

Excerpt from Washington Post (Energy 202): As Democrats unified around what they called a "sham" vote held without any hearings or expert testimony, McConnell panned Democrats’ strategy to vote "present."

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Yet some Democrats running for president insisted that their vote for "present" does not mean they will give up their push for the ideas behind the Green New Deal.

“We don't know if we can get to net zero carbon emissions in 10 years, but we should certainly try,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at a news conference held by Democrats and climate activists. “Why not this be a measure of how great we are as a nation?”

But Gillibrand was the only 2020 candidate to show up to the event, though that didn't concern young climate activists who waved off concerns about their absence and pointed to candidates’ messaging on the campaign trail.

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Yet irony of the Green New Deal proposal is that it is forcing some Republicans to put forward their own climate proposals after being led by for two years by Trump, who has repeatedly dismissed as a hoax the overwhelming consensus among climate scientists that humans are warming the world.

“Over the past six weeks we've engaged in more debate about climate change than we have over the past 10 years,” said Markey, the lead Senate sponsor on the Green New Deal. “That was always part of the goal.”

Those GOP approaches often emphasize innovation in nascent forms of nuclear energy or methods of capturing carbon dioxide before it is released into the air.

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At the press conference, the Green New Deal's supporters argued it was actually politically savvy to set a seemingly aspirational goal, like President John F. Kennedy did when he called for sending a man to the moon, in the face of a planetary crisis.

Yet a chorus of detractors, including some Democrats, said the goal of drastically curbing the release of the heat-trapping gases across U.S. electricity, manufacturing, transportation and agricultural sectors within just 10 years is impossible to achieve.

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About 10 years is how long a panel of U.N. scientists says the world has to rein in emissions and keep the global temperature increase to moderate levels. READ MORE