Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-NY, reintroduced the Green New Deal this week as a bill to fundamentally transform the U.S. economy and promote “racial, economic, and climate injustice.”
More than 100 Democrats are co-sponsoring the legislation, which they want President Joe Biden to adopt.
While his own ‘infrastructure‘ plan embraces many of the controversial bill’s slightly less radical components, Biden has thus far refused to endorse the Green New Deal, leading Ocasio–Cortez and other leftists to turn on him.
“There are a lot of areas that demand a lot of expansion,” Ocasio–Cortez said of Biden’s $3 trillion infrastructure package, which focuses largely on climate change.
The updated Green New Deal still calls for “100% of the power demand in the U.S.” to be met through “clean, renewable, and zero-emission sources.”
Infrastructure and public transportation would be overhauled to the point where “air travel stops becoming necessary” and “all existing buildings” are relying on green energy.
The bill would also “rectify the injustices of the past,” Ocasio–Cortez claimed, by providing free higher education for all Americans, “affordable, safe, and adequate” housing, free healthcare, and millions of “union jobs.”
“We must recognize in legislation that the trampling of indigenous rights is a cause of climate change, that the trampling of racial justice is a cause of climate change,” Ocasio–Cortez said during a press conference this week.
“We are allowing folks to deny ourselves human rights and deny people the right to health care, the right to housing and education,” she added.
Republicans responded to the legislation by giving it a new nickname: the Green New Disaster.
“It’s about massively increasing the size of government and dictating how Americans live their lives,” Sen. John Barasso, R-Wyo., said in response to Ocasio–Cortez. “The last thing we need now is to double down on the punishing policies we have already seen from the Biden administration.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also dismissed the bill, calling it a pipe dream.
Democrats “definitely think that money grows on trees, and I guess that’s part of the green plan,” he said.
