(Gabbie)
Incoming New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brings with her a massive online following, influence she says she’ll deploy only in support of candidates and politicians who support her plan for a “Green New Deal.”
“The Green New Deal” is something Ocasio-Cortez invokes frequently in media appearances and rallies.
So what’s actually in it?
Her office recently released the text of a proposed House rules change outlining the plan.
The proposed rule change for the upcoming 116th Congress would require the creation of a “Select Committee for a Green Deal” that would be responsible for creating the plan by January 1, 2020, with corresponding draft legislation soon after. The text of the rule change lays out the committee’s jurisdiction and required areas of action.
Its scope and mandate for legislative authority amounts to a radical grant of power to Washington over Americans’ lives, homes, businesses, travel, banking, and more.
Early on, under “Jurisdiction,” the document makes clear its grandiose philosophical vision: “The select committee shall have authority to develop a detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan for the transition of the United States economy to become greenhouse gas emissions neutral and to significantly draw down greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote economic and environmental justice and equality.”
In addition to achieving its goal of “meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources,” the document also repeatedly states the Green New Deal will advance non-environmental projects, such as, “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s plan further claims it will (virtually) eliminate poverty: “The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation.” Read more