Sensible Democrats remove fossil fuel eradication from Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal

By Jason Hopkins

In what will likely be a major disappointment for the Democratic Party’s progressive base, upcoming Green New Deal legislation will omit the plan’s most lauded goal: A specific deadline for ending U.S. fossil fuel development.

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey are expected to unveil their Green New Deal resolution later this week. However, their bill will not include a set date for complete oil and gas eradication, according to a Politico report.

Wikimedia Commons/Analogue Kid

Some Democrats have proposed eliminating the primary energy source of the United States: fossil fuels.

Instead, the legislation will outline more ambiguous goals. A section of the text includes a call for achieving “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for a fair and just transition for frontline communities and displaced workers,” and aims to eliminate the country’s carbon footprint by 2030 using unproven technology.

The bill also breaks with old tenets of the Green New Deal by touting “clean” energy instead of “renewable” energy, leaving the door open for other zero-carbon energy sources such as nuclear, which has experienced rapid decline in recent years.

The changes are reportedly meant to serve as a compromise between two major factions of the Democratic Party: The environmentalists who don’t like the fossil fuel industry and union workers who depend on fossil fuel-related jobs.

“It was an inclusive drafting process that included stakeholders from environmental, labor and more traditional environmental organizations,” said Julian NoiseCat, policy director with the environmentalist group 350.org. “I think that is itself pretty laudable.”

Critics of the Green New Deal pointed to the omission as proof of the necessity of oil and natural gas.

“Even the most hardened opponents of affordable energy now admit that slogans like ‘Keep It In the Ground’ and ‘ban fracking now’ are nothing more than fringe talking points. It’s easy to declare the end of fossil fuels, but actually crafting a plan to destroy the economy is both bad policy and bad politics,” said Texans for Natural Gas spokesman Steve Everley in a Monday statement. “We eagerly await the next walkback from supporters of the Green New Deal.”

Ocasio-Cortez has established herself as the most high-profile supporter of the Green New Deal since winning her primary election. The proposal calls for a dramatic transition of the country’s grid to renewable sources such as wind and solar in just a few years time, and is estimated to cost upwards of $5 trillion.

Numerous Democratic presidential hopefuls have announced their support for the Green New Deal, albeit in vague terms. The elimination of a specific timetable to remove all fossil fuels will likely make it easier for more Democrats to get on board.

Nevertheless, other energy experts continue to question the practicality of the Deal’s goals.

“We may get there one day,” said Daniel Turner, the executive director of Power The Future, in a Thursday interview with Tucker Carlson that detailed the technological limitations that currently plague the renewable energy industry. “So when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says we are going to power the entire country on renewables, there just isn’t the land to come up with the solar farm or the wind necessary to have these renewables.”

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Images courtesy of U.S. House of Representatives and Wikimedia Commons/Analogue Kid

3 thoughts on “Sensible Democrats remove fossil fuel eradication from Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal

  1. That ANYBODY listens to anything this teeny bopper mental mentality has to say is beyond me. She’s dumb! And she appeals to a dumb voting block Democrats.

  2. Well if this does give a kick in the butt to get Clean Nuclear Power going
    I’ll be happy as will be customers who won’t be paying exorbitant greentard energy prices.
    However It’s hard to believe the leftist faction will go along with more Nuke..
    when they have been totally against it for so long..
    Shutting down OACrazio’s idea’s could lead to lot’s of infighting on the demtard side of the isle, buy popcorn stock….

    • DEM/PROG Legislators and RE Proponents of carbon taxes are using socialistic schemes and global warming scare tactics to set up government programs that provide subsidies to RE companies, and other RE entities, and to help the poor and various other favored groups.

      All of it is done to get more votes and stay in power and have “total-control” power.

      RE zealots (living and traveling off other people’s money) are proposing energy solutions that would make the world’s energy supply system, from source to user, have a footprint on the world’s surface at least 3-4 times greater than the present system.

      To avoid that disaster, the world’s primary energy would have to be at least 75% from nuclear, with the rest from wind, solar, hydro, bio.

      Mankind screwed up big time by allowing the world population to increase from about 1.0 billion in 1800, before fossil fuels, to the present 7.5 billion.

      With 9 to 10 billion in 2050, several billion of them refuge seeking, the much larger footprint of the world energy supply system will be rolling over and damaging much of the remaining flora and fauna.

      No one is talking about that at the COP24 RE love fest in coal-loving Poland.

      Serious population reduction is about 200 years overdue.

      Ocasio-Cortez:
      “We can use the transition to 100 percent renewable energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social, and racial justice in the United States of America,” she said during a Dec. 5 panel discussion alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, another neo-Socialist who was married in the USSR and spent his honeymoon there.

      The cat is out of the bag.

      NOTE THE HIDDEN AGENDA.
      EVEN BERNIE IS NOT THAT BLUNT

      Dem/Prog/Socialist climate change fighting = MORE government programs for the undeserving, tax-consuming poor.

      Free electric vehicles for the poor

      Free deep energy retrofits of the housing of the poor

      Free heat pumps, solar systems and batteries for the poor
      http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-baseless-claims-about-cold-climate-heat-pumps-for

      Free highly insulated/highly sealed housing for the poor

      Free healthcare for the poor

      Free education for the poor

      Free energy for the poor

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