Earlier this week, the Senate rejected the Green New Deal by a 57-0 tally, with 43 senators voting “present.” Hot accusatory rhetoric for and against the proposal generated little or no light. All of this agglomerates into a searing indictment of our political system’s inability to address our nation’s most important problems.
Climate change demands our attention. The consequences of continued warming are potentially catastrophic. Even those who accept warming data but deny a human role must think long and hard about effective mitigation.
But neither side in this debate covered itself in glory. To understand why, start with the legislative vehicle in question, Senate Resolution 59, which mirrors House Resolution 109, the original Green New Deal. The congressional terminology matters: Neither House nor Senate resolutions need to be approved by the other chamber or the president. They don’t carry the force of law. Resolutions, in other words, don’t actually do anything, making the debate surrounding them much ado about very little.
The resolutions begin by enumerating the alarming prospects set forth in October 2018 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and loss of coastline, among many others. They then call for “a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era.” The predictions and the scale of the suggested response are so alarming that the first question might be: Why would such an impending catastrophe call for a purely hortatory resolution? Do we not need “action and action now,” to borrow the phrase from the father of the original New Deal?
That problem is reinforced by the subsequent language. After targeting climate change with a 10-year deadline for “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” the resolution then states that it is also “the duty of the Federal Government” to provide a job guarantee at a “family sustaining wage rate,” “high-quality health care … affordable, safe, and adequate housing … clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature” for “all people of the United States … to counteract systemic injustices” and “provide unprecedented levels of prosperity.”
Oh, is that all?
Some of the proposals’ advocates have compared it to John F. Kennedy’s determination to put a man on the moon. But in economic terms, at least, the Kennedy moon program was trivial compared with any reasonable interpretation of what’s now being proposed.
Moreover, might trade-offs not be required here? If climate change is an existential issue, should we not focus on it alone? The Green New Deal resolution anticipates this criticism by complaining that “many members of frontline and vulnerable communities were excluded from many of the economic and social benefits of” the World War II and New Deal “mobilizations.” But perhaps such a fight-for-your-life mobilization required cracking some eggs and postponing some other national aspirations — as those who lived through the war years could relate. The trade-off then was rationing, minimal civilian home construction, and a dearth of near-necessities, such as cars and household appliances.
In that light, how can such a national mobilization today be consistent with an abundance of everything that anyone would ever want?
As for the resolution’s opponents, one conservative think tank estimated the cost of the Green New Deal to be between $51.1 trillion and $92.9 trillion over 10 years. Even that spread seems surprisingly precise, derived as it is from a non-binding 14-page resolution.
While the plan’s advocates should have been more serious about and focused on the challenges they raised, their opponents should at least accept the seriousness of the problem. Instead, both sides just threw spitballs. Bottom line: The nation refuses to engage on a potentially crucial issue in a way that has any prospect of progress.
We need a constructive national debate on the fundamental issue. Can we build a consensus and narrow the dispute over climate change and the human role? What is the easy, low-hanging fruit of decarbonization on which we can agree? What are the public research prerequisites for breakthroughs that could reduce both consumer costs and harmful emissions? How can we prepare for the dislocations that would beset existing high-carbon activities, such as flooding and the spread of infestations and disease?
Such basic questions are ignored in favor of sky-is-falling alarms designed to pick a fight and end in political victory but legislative deadlock. They are met with unqualified denials that ignore both the risks and the need for prudent insurance against them.
Serious issues require the engagement of serious minds on both sides. Our nation must do better.
Joe Minarik is the senior vice president and director of research for the Committee for Economic Development. He was chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton.
