‘I guess that means our colleagues from California are going to be riding their bicycles back home to their constituents…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Even though House Democrats now set the agenda, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., showed that she was still the one in charge during a hearing earlier this week for the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources titled “Climate Change: Preparing for Energy Transition.”
It came just a few day after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., unveiled the radical net-zero emissions objectives of her “Green New Deal.”
In the cosmic plane occupied by Ocasio–Cortez, the world is due to end by the year 2031.
That leaves precious little time for Democrats to put in place the ambitious—and costly—agenda that the socialism-loving freshman congresswoman proposed last week.
“The Green New Deal resolution a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create economic prosperity for all,” said the policy framework.
The plan was publicly shared, but was later deleted from her website with Ocasio-Cortez claiming her staff had mistakenly released a preliminary draft.
Among the memorable highlights:
- Economic security for those unable and unwilling to work
- Green-friendly sustainability makeovers for every building in the U.S.
- The elimination of fossil fuels within 10 years
- The corresponding phase-out of fossil-fuel-dependent air travel
To show voters that she hadn’t gone off the rails, “AOC” noted that the aim of reaching zero emissions within a decade was a goal, not set in stone but one that could be redefined as political necessity dictated.
“We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast,” said a frequently-asked question section.
Evidently, those reassurances offered little comfort to the people of Wyoming, the largest coal-producer in the country.
Although mocked and dismissed by many, the “Green New Deal” received offers to co-sponsor from all five of the Senate Democrats who have announced their candidacy for the 2020 presidential race. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also promised, albeit ironically, to put it to a floor vote in the upper chamber.
The attention given to the proposal, along with the topic of the subcommittee hearing on “Preparing for Energy Transition” and the “experts” brought to testify made it no laughing matter for Cheney, who opened her questioning by asking how each of the panelists had arrived that day in Washington.
After four of the six said they used air-travel, Cheney immediately laid into the absurdity of the “Green New Deal” proposal to eliminate fossil fuels within 10 years.
“I would assume we’re not just going to wait 10 years and then all the sudden tell people all the sudden they can’t fly, but that we’ll be in a situation where over the course of ten years we would somehow gradually work our way out of air travel,” she said.
Cheney went on to ask the panel whether they thought the federal government would need to establish rules to prioritize air travel.
“It would seem to me I guess we would then have a situation where the FAA could say for example, you know what, vacation travel—that’s not essential,” she said. “… Would you say that we’re going to have some sort of a vacation commissar set up in the government to determine what kind of air travel makes sense and what kind doesn’t?”
Cheney continued her interrogation by asking who on the panel supported the Green New Deal.
None raised their hands.
“It’s going to be crucially important for us to recognize and understand when we outlaw plane travel, we outlaw gasoline, we outlaw cars—I think actually probably the entire U.S. military—because of the Green New Deal that we are able to explain to our constituents and to people all across this country what that really means,” she continued. “… I guess that means our colleagues from California are going to be riding their bicycles back home to their constituents.”