Opinions: Why the Time Has Come for a Green New Deal

by Katrina vanden Heuvel (Washington Post) Almost 20 years ago, writer Mark Hertsgaard suggested a bold idea to upend the climate debate. Arguing that ambitious climate action was politically impossible without simultaneously meeting people’s economic needs, he proposed a massive public works program to “retrofit everything from our farms to our factories” that would be “a huge source of jobs, profits, and general economic well-being.” He called it the Global Green Deal.

Likely 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker are just two of the scores of elected officials who have endorsed a Green New Deal. Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is organizingHouse Democrats to draft and pass corresponding legislation.

The Republican-controlled Senate may well reject such legislation, but that would only put the GOP further on the wrong side of history and clarify voters’ choices for 2020.

One of its core elements is a federal job guarantee, with a livable wage and health insurance, for all who want to work. This provision promises to attract vast numbers of economically struggling voters, making it politically risky for Republicans to oppose it.

It would enable Democrats to help the coal miners whom candidate Donald Trump promised to protect but betrayed as president.

All members of Congress should take note: Retrofitting our buildings to make them super energy efficient is a labor-intensive task that needs doing in every district in the United States, and it cannot be outsourced. These jobs will stimulate additional local economic activity by keeping workers employed and spending paychecks.

How refreshing it is to hear environmental champions saying “yes!” to ideas.

By contrast, a Green New Deal is shrewdly packaged, leaves little doubt about its purpose and, polls show, is popular with the public. A new Yale survey found that a Green New Deal is supported by a staggering 81 percent of registered voters.

By championing environmental justice as a foundational principle of a Green New Deal — prioritizing employment for the communities that historically have borne the brunt of pollution — Ocasio-Cortez is counting on building the popular pressure needed to overcome Big Oil’s long-standing stranglehold over federal policy.

Predictably, Republicans are squawking about who would pay for a Green New Deal. They should learn some history: The original New Deal’s deficit spending is what pulled the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. They should also check their hypocrisy: Republicans just passed President Trump’s $1.7 trillion tax cut, which grew nothing except the federal deficit and their rich donors’ investment portfolios. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: He may have written an op-ed calling for action to address climate change, but Barrasso still isn't embracing the scientific consensus that human activity is driving the problem. "Certainly human activity is contributory but I can't tell you what percentage. No one can," he told ME. "We need to do all we can in a way to make sure energy is produced as clean as we can, as fast as we can, without doing it in ways that raise costs." And Barrasso, whose Republican Policy Committee released a report bashing the Green New Deal last week, called it unrealistic. "It's impossible for them to accomplish what they want," he said. "There is a huge gap between the energy the country uses and what can be produced right now with renewable sources alone." READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: The likely next chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy talked the select committee on climate change, the possibility of an infrastructure bill in the first 100 days of the next Congress and his other priorities in a Q&A with Pro's Eric Wolff. Here are some key takeaways:
— On his top priority: "I want to fight the good fight to keep our jurisdiction from being diluted to the point we have no jurisdiction at all. They seem hellbent on getting rich on Energy and Commerce and eating off the skeleton of what it used to be."
— On supporters of a select committee on climate change: "Where were you when the going was tough? Where were you when we were the voice in the wilderness? Where were you then? And so I really think that it's foolhardy, it's unnecessary. The last time we had a select committee, the only thing that came out of it was Sen. [Ed] Markey was able to use it as an arrow in his quiver to help get elected to the Senate."
— On his policy focus: "I know a lot of my time is going to be spent on climate change. I don't have right now what kind of policies. ... I don't like this whole idea of FERC and FCC having these kind of fights. We want to be telling FERC that they don't put their hand on the scale."

HOYER: CLIMATE PANEL UNLIKELY TO HAVE SUBPOENA POWER: House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer says a climate panel next Congress is unlikely to have subpoena power. "I don't think that they think they need subpoena power. They're going to have experts who are, I think, dying to come before them," he told reporters Wednesday. "I don't think the question of subpoena power is going to, in any way, undermine their ability to move forward."

Progressives panned the prospect. "If true, this decision is an insult to the thousands of young people across the country who have been calling on the Democratic Party leadership to have the courage to stand up to fossil fuel billionaires and make sure our generation has a livable future," said Varshini Prakash, spokeswoman of the Sunrise Movement, in a statement. In a tweet, Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responded that "a weak committee misses the point & endangers people." READ MORE