“Americans deserve better than to foot the bill for the Green New Deal’s reckless, expensive, and unattainable goals.” Rep. Markwayne Mullin.
The Green New Deal unveiled by two Democrats in congress did not get a warm reception from Oklahoma Congressman Markwayne Mullin. Nor did he appreciate his comments being reported at the end of a Bloomberg News Article about the environmental legislative proposal from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Rep. Mullin, the 2nd district congressman who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee was blunt in his opposition to the Democratic proposal that carries an estimated price tag of $7 trillion.
“Americans deserve better than to foot the bill for the Green New Deal’s reckless, expensive, and unattainable goals. The Green New Deal, just like proposals for free college or Medicaid for All, is nothing but an empty promise that leaves American taxpayers on the hook.”
The comment was quoted in the Bloomberg article and it caught Mullin’s attention. He later issued a tweet:
Funny how this is buried at the bottom…”Americans deserve better than to foot the bill for the #GreenNewDeal’s reckless, expensive & unattainable goals…nothing but an empty promise that leaves American taxpayers on the hook.” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-07/ocasio-cortez-and-markey-set-to-unveil-their-green-new-deal …
The plan already has 60 co-sponsors in the House but is strongly opposed by Republicans such as Rep. Mullin who are critical of a plan they call technologically impossible and with a price tag into the tens of trillions of dollars.
Even House speaker Nancy Pelosi has offered a luke-warm response to the plan.
“It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” Pelosi said. “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it right?”
The plan, in the form of a non-binding resolution, weaves together what had been a hodgepodge of progressive proposals and aspirations into a single initiative. It sets a goal of shifting the nation to 100 percent “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” within 10 years “to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers.”
While the plan doesn’t explicitly call for a ban on fossil fuels, as some early backers had hoped, Ocasio-Cortez’s office has made it clear that the plan doesn’t leave a path forward for the fuel source, which a fact sheet on the plan said would make “new fossil fuel infrastructure or industries obsolete.”
Earlier reports indicated the Green New Deal might even include a move by Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe to expand federal grants to clean up and reuse brownfield sites. He had filed S. 822 to do so.
But the Senator has yet to react to the plan and no statement was available from his office.
