Little noticed in the media circus surrounding the mere introduction of a non-binding Congressional resolution on the Green New Deal was the deletion of much-criticized and plainly unachievable mandates contained in previous GND versions.
Gone was the impossible diktat requiring 100% renewable energy for the entire economy by 2030. Missing was the politically suicidal and practically infeasible flat-out prohibition on fossil fuels in little more than a decade. Even extraneous language on guaranteed jobs in the resolution had been watered down from earlier texts, and would of course never be a legal requirement in actual climate legislation that passes Congress in any event.
In fact, the more extreme provisions in the GND have served largely to provide Trump and other Republican anti-climate action forces with irresistible political fodder. Republicans hope to scare the American people into opposing sensible climate actions by invoking GND extremism, and have already produced ads with these themes.
Happily, there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals. Instead, a host of well-known policies that mainstream Democrats can pass through key Committees and the full House would show the path for the U.S. to meet the goal of zero net emissions by 2045, well before the 2050 deadline called for in the resolution and urged by leading scientists. These policies include:
- an ambitious zero-emissions electricity standard that includes nuclear and carbon capture along with wind and solar power;
- overturning Trump’s rollbacks of regulations on auto fuel economy standards, methane emissions, and using the social cost of carbon emissions when considering climate costs and benefits of major federal policies;
- large tax incentives and infrastructure buildouts to transition U.S. transportation away from oil toward all-electric and fuel cells vehicles;
- increasing sequestration of carbon in forests, farms and public lands while providing rural areas new clean revenue sources including from wind, solar, and advanced biofuels;
- large increases in U.S. energy R&D funding to invent and deploy new breakthrough clean technologies;
- a crash public diplomacy effort to regain momentum for global de-carbonization in other major nations; and many others.
These policies can produce a US energy mix of: increased energy efficiency; greatly expanded renewable solar and wind; greater levels of nuclear power and additional hydropower at current sites; natural gas power generation and industrial plants both using carbon capture; electrification of transport along with fuel cells; expanded electricity storage; and improvements in land management for carbon storage—that all together can decarbonize America, and help compel other nations to act as well.
Indeed, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, key committees of jurisdiction like Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Transportation and Infrastructure have begun working on many of these approaches already. They will not be waiting for GND advocates to settle their ideological differences. Although Pelosi created a select Committee on the Climate Crisis to draw attention to the issue, she refused to grant it legislative authority as Ocasio-Cortez and other GND activists requested, and is clearly relying on standing Committees to get the job done. Sensible Presidential candidates would do well to watch the House legislative process more carefully when creating their own policies rather than just hiding behind GND fig leaf.
Of course, far-left advocates will not go down without a fight, and have made even inevitable concessions described above only reluctantly. As Bloomberg News first reported, the office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put out a fact sheet claiming the GND Congressional resolution prevented both nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS) from being counted toward zero-emissions energy. Ocasio-Cortez’s office quickly backtracked since the resolution, in fact, had no such prohibitions. Even so, fewer than 70 members of the House and Senate had signed onto it as of late last week. And most serious climate advocates, including Resolution Sponsor Sen. Ed Markey and Obama Energy Secretary Ernie Moniz, have said that our climate goals can’t be met without employing all zero-emissions approaches, including nuclear and CCS.
All this illustrates glaringly thatGND advocates must continue to make many more sensible revisions and concessions to have any hope of influencing the bills that can actually become law if and when Democrats regain the White House and Senate in 2020.
That said, not all the GND goals are fanciful or unachievable. As discussed, the overall goal of de-carbonization of the American economy can be reached over the next several decades with reasonable policies. And the GND resolution goal of “creating millions of good, high-wage jobs” would easily be achieved by the policies a Democratic House is likely to pass. We know this because by the end of President Obama’s two terms, the U.S. had already created more than 4 million jobs in clean energy and energy efficiency. These are just the sort of high-paying jobs, with salaries ranging from at least $35,000 to well over $100,00 a year, that GND advocates hope to produce, but which of course the private sector will actually create with the right incentives.
Finally, reducing the exponential growth of hugely expensive climate change impacts—with hundreds of billions a year in costs to consumers, businesses and taxpayers due to more extreme weather, heat, fire, sea-level and other impacts—must be factored into the benefits from climate action.
Speaker Pelosi is carefully walking a tightrope between not offending zealous advocates yet respecting Committee Chairs who have to write ambitious climate bills that can pass. But she seemed to tip her hand when she termed the effort a “Green Dream or whatever you call it” noting that “nobody knows what’s in it”—clearly reflecting its lack of legislative specificity, while being clear she supported its climate goals.
Despite all this, you must give credit where credit is due. The Green New Deal has captured media attention and galvanized many years of frustration into far-left enthusiasm to take on the climate challenge. Fortunately, mainstream Congressional Democrats have the policies and legislative expertise to write and pass bill that can address the climate change crisis. In the end, helping get such ambitious legislation to become law will be the real value of the Green New Deal, a worthy goal that activists should keep in mind.
