Senate Republicans struck back Tuesday at growing momentum among progressive House Democrats for a “Green New Deal” next Congress to combat climate change.
The Senate Republican Policy Committee, led by Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, issued a paper saying the Green New Deal’s focus on eliminating fossil fuels within 10 years would be expensive and technically impossible.
“While the plan is being sold as a solution to climate change and a jobs program, it would cost trillions, and it ignores the rest of the world’s contribution to climate change,” the policy paper said.
Incoming House liberals are demanding that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who is expected to be speaker next Congress, revive a select climate committee and empower it to draft a climate change bill by 2020 that would require 100 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources within a decade.
Progressive sensation Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has led the push, and in the past three weeks, roughly two dozen congressional Democrats have endorsed the Green New Deal.
That’s according to the Sunrise Movement, a progressive activist group of young people that has held sit-ins in congressional offices over recent weeks, specifically targeting House Democratic leadership, calling for a “rapid, massive, wartime mobilization” to combat climate change.
The Green New Deal also would guarantee a job to anybody who wants to work in the clean energy transition, make every residential and industrial building more energy efficient, and build a national “smart” grid.
Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the likely incoming chairman of the House Rules Committee, on Monday became the latest Democrat to endorse the Green New Deal, which is important because his panel would be charged with creating a select committee on climate change.
A 100 percent carbon-free or renewable energy target has long been a slogan and broad vision more than an achievable policy goal for Democrats who want to transition the power grid faster to nonemitting sources. Many young, progressive candidates campaigned on 100 percent renewable energy platforms and want to see comprehensive climate bills voted on before 2020.
The nation’s electricity system is already moving away from coal to natural gas, which emits half the carbon, and to a lesser extent renewables such as wind and solar that have come down in cost. A recent United Nations report said emissions should be net-zero by midcentury to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change, heightening the urgency.
But many experts say 100 percent policies must include “clean” energy sources that aren’t renewable for it to be technically feasible. These include advanced nuclear reactors, or carbon, capture, and storage technologies that can collect carbon emissions from coal or natural gas plants and store it underground.
These experts say the intermittency of wind and solar resources make it unrealistic and expensive to depend only on them for electricity until energy storage technologies are more widely adopted, which would enable their use when the sun sets and wind is not blowing.
