The Senate on Tuesday night rejected completely the Green New Deal, refusing to debate a comprehensive climate change plan offered by Democrats in both houses.
The senators voted 57-0 against a procedural motion to embrace a non-binding resolution calling on the administration to switch from fossil fuels—oil and coal, to renewable sources—wind and solar power. Three Democrats and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) who caucuses Democrat, joined the 53 Senate Republicans in voting down the plan. Forty-three Democrats voted “present,” to protest Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s move of skipping a debate on the issue.
The Green New Deal (GND) is a proposed economic stimulus program to address climate change and economic inequality, whose name recall the Great Depression era New Deal that was undertaken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Indeed, the Green New Deal combines Roosevelt’s economic approach of massive government projects to revive the economy with renewable energy and resource efficiency.
One week after she had been elected to Congress, in Nov. 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) launched a resolution to create a committee on the Green New Deal. She was joined initially by her congressional allies on other issues, among them vile attacks on Israel and on Jews, Deb Haaland, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Antonio Delgado – all Democrats.
The plan has broad support in the ranks of the Democratic left, which is why the six Democratic senators currently running for the party’s presidential nomination in 2020 signed on as co-sponsors of the proposed resolution, which means it will definitely be a major topic in next year’s primary debates.
On Monday, the NY Post reported that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez had gotten into a heated exchange with GOP Rep. Sean Duffy, who called the Green New Deal “elitist.”
“The green new deal is one that if you are a rich liberal from maybe New York or California it sounds great because you can afford to retrofit your home or build a new home that has a zero emissions, that is energy-efficient, affordable and safe,” Duffy said during a Financial Services Committee hearing.
“People are dying. They are dying,” Ocasio-Cortez exclaimed in response.
Yes, they are, for a long time now. But what Duffy was attempting was an amendment to a homelessness bill which would have removed that part where the bill had to live up to green new deal standards.