One hundred percent clean energy? No greenhouse gases? All electric cars? Unemployment at zero percent? You want it, the Green New Deal (GND) has it.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a freshman representative from New York who pioneered the plan, is making waves in Washington as she and other prominent Democrats push the agenda outlined in the deal.
The GND sounds fantastic in principle; it would seem to fix all of America’s problems with one simple piece of legislation. But while its fix-all approach seems to be the GND’s greatest strength, in reality it is its downfall.
The problem comes largely from trying to tackle many problems at once. Legislation that large is simply too difficult to pass and too difficult to implement.
A piece of legislation detailing a sufficient plan to combat climate change is controversial enough. Supporters of such a bill would have to fight tooth and nail to get actual climate change reform passed.
Don’t get me wrong, we need actual climate change reform to happen, and we need it soon.
However, when put in the same bill as universal employment (another thing the GND promises) it becomes just one of several near-impossible plans to pass.
As Rich Powell, an executive from Clear Path, a group that encourages conservative climate change reform, says, “The Green New Deal is not an ideal name if you want to attract bipartisan support; there’s a lot of distrust of these home-run giga-packages. It’s been a lot more effective to try to hit some singles and doubles.”
AOC and the other Democrats in support of the GND need to take a step back and ask themselves what is possible, and realistic to pass. We need to pass legislation attacking each problem with complete focus, laying out detailed and functional plans for how to deal with the issues America is facing today.
We don’t need to have Democrats trying to force a miracle plan down the throats of Republicans and even moderate Democrats. So although the plan is great for gathering easy support from liberal voters, it shouldn’t be our focus right now.
Let me clarify: I like and agree with much of the policy within the GND and the energy that AOC has brought to Congress surrounding it, and the conversations surrounding climate change that it has inspired have been great. But that energy needs to be redirected to legislation that can be passed in a bipartisan fashion and truly help solve the problems faced by Americans today.