The Green New Deal Is Generating Lots of Left-Wing Enthusiasm. But Not Every Democrat Is on Board.

February 18, 2019

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by Dino Grandoni (Washington Post) ... But fault lines within the Democratic caucus were already visible before the end of the day, with some members urging caution about setting vague and, at times, impossible-to-achieve goals to only fall short.

And perhaps most importantly, the plan has yet to get the formal backing of one crucial Democrat: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

"It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi told Politico on Wednesday. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”

“There’s not unanimity,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who backs the Green New Deal proposal and chairs the House Natural Resources Committee. “I’m sure there’s colleagues that feel that should have been more prescriptive than it is. And I’m sure there’s colleagues that feel that we’re providing an issue to the other side.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), whose star only seems to be rising in the Democratic Party, and Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who led the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming when he was in the House, introduced the measure, a nonbinding resolution, that they say opens the debate on how to craft tangible legislation on an idea that until now essentially served as a campaign slogan.

Markey and Ocasio-Cortez are calling for the United States to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions to zero within 10 years and eliminate climate-warming pollution from the transportation sector “as much as is technologically possible."

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The proposal advanced by the Democrats is still vague, perhaps in a bid to garner broad support -- Ocasio-Cortez and Markey attracted roughly 60 House members and nine senators as initial co-sponsors. Endorsements from Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), each of whom are running for president, signal the Green New Deal will be an ongoing issue in the 2020 election.

Many observers saw Pelosi’s “green dream” comment as dismissive.

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But proponents of the proposal embraced Pelosi’s language. "I think it is a green dream,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a press conference rolling out the Green New Deal. “I don’t consider that to be a dismissive term. I think it’s a great term.”

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Still, other Democrats expressed more skepticism about slashing carbon emissions that quickly.

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Green New Deal backers envision a series of bills and subsequent programs — similar to the New Deal — that will be taken up by multiple committees and passed over a number of years. READ MORE

GREEN NEW DEAL: BY THE NUMBERS: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Jack Abramoff joins super PAC, targets 'Green New Deal' (E&E News)

Green New Deal Proponents Not Uniformly Behind a Broadened Platform; Quarter of Republican voters said they back the Green New Deal (Morning Consult)

FORMER EPA OFFICIAL LAUNCHES PUSH AGAINST GND: (Politico's Morning Energy)

In 2020, we may finally get to talk about what kind of capitalism we want (Washington Post)

The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter with the Young Green New Deal Activists (The New Yorker)

FIRST COMES FEINSTEIN, THEN COMES McCONNELL: (Politico's Morning Energy)

STATE OF THE UNIONS: (Politico's Morning Energy)

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: GREEN NEW DEAL: BY THE NUMBERS: A plurality of voters support the Green New Deal resolution introduced by Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but they are divided about the range of goals incorporated in the proposal, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that surveyed registered voters from Feb. 15-19.

Several of the policy ideas laid out in the nonbinding resolution drew sharp criticism from Republicans, some who've called the Green New Deal a "socialist manifesto." On the other side, the resolution is being used as a litmus test for Democratic candidates for president.

Voters largely know at least something about the resolution: 50 percent said they'd heard either "a lot" (21 percent) or "some" (29 percent). On the flip side, 22 percent said they'd heard "not much" and 28 percent said they'd heard nothing at all.
But voters are split on whether the resolution should incorporate a range of environmental justice, social and economic policy issues. According to the POLITICO poll, 28 percent of respondents said the Green New Deal should bring all those policy issues into its platform, while 32 percent said it should focus specifically on addressing climate change. The latter figure includes 38 percent of Republicans and 29 percent of Democrats.

Thirty-two percent of voters also said passing a bill to address climate change is their top priority for lawmakers, while 26 percent called it "important, but lower priority." Eighteen percent called it "not too important a priority," and 13 percent said it "should not be done." READ MORE

Excerpt from E&E News: After a brief stint in campaign finance reform, disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is now fundraising in support of conservative candidates by attacking an ambitious effort to combat climate change.

"These socialists are so confused, and their messaging is getting worse by the minute," Abramoff said yesterday in a fundraising pitch for the newly created Protect American Values political action committee.

"They seem to think that cows and airplanes are a threat to our future. Sounds to me like they have been infected by Mad Cow Disease!" he wrote in an email with the subject line "More cows, less Democrats."

Abramoff was listed in the email as the "honorary chairman" of the super PAC, an independent group that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money to advocate for or against political candidates.

A Federal Election Commission filing shows the group was created earlier this month by Liz Curtis, a self-described "political compliance consultant" based in New Jersey. She is also listed as the group's treasurer and recordkeeper. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: FORMER EPA OFFICIAL LAUNCHES PUSH AGAINST GND: Mandy Gunasekara, the former EPA air office official who left the agency to start her own nonprofit to advocate on behalf of the Trump administration, has launched a push against the Green New Deal. Gunasekara shared a video Wednesday that compared the proposal to "Soviet takeovers of the economy," and links to a petition to "defeat" the Green New Deal. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: FIRST COMES FEINSTEIN, THEN COMES McCONNELL: Youth activists with the Sunrise Movement will deliver a petition to McConnell this morning and push him on the Green New Deal resolution. It follows a viral clash between protesters and Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Friday.

Activists will be led today by Kentucky high schoolers who camped outside of McConnell's state office last week but were turned away, Sunrise communications director Stephen O'Hanlon told ME. "What they're asking is for Mitch McConnell to look them in the eye and explain why he is prioritizing his oil and gas donors over their futures," he said.

The group is ramping up its efforts ahead of a vote in the Senate on Ed Markey's Green New Deal resolution, S. Res. 59 (116), with a day of action on Tuesday to make clear to both Democrats and Republicans that if "they don't stand with young people and back the Green New Deal, that we're going to remember that when they are asking for our votes next," O'Hanlon said.

Feinstein drew criticism this weekend after a tense confrontation with youth climate protesters, where she said she may vote "present" on the resolution but made clear it will not pass. "It's not a good resolution," Feinstein said in a 15-minute video posted by the Sunrise Movement.

The California Democrat released a statement after the viral clip, where she said she wanted the "children to know they were heard loud and clear." She pointed to her own draft resolution that critics say features less aggressive goals than Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's proposal. READ MORE

Excerpt from Politico's Morning Energy: STATE OF THE UNIONS: The Sunrise Movement shot back at a letter ME told you about from unions opposing the Green New Deal, as shared by GOP Sen. John Barrasso. "This letter is not an official position of the AFL-CIO or its 55 member unions; it is a letter from ten unions on its energy committee," the group said in a Twitter thread . "Barrasso is misrepresenting it to sow mistrust. This is a classic strategy of dividing the people so the wealthy elites can keep robbing us all." READ MORE