Green New Deal lite: House Dems Unveil Substitute To AOC’s Climate Plan

House Democrats unveiled Monday their long-awaited Climate Crisis Action Plan, a less-ambitious version of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal that proponents hailed as a bold step toward slashing emissions and critics slammed as a way to “make China great again.”

The plan, written by Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis without Republican input, called for a carbon tax, hefty green-energy subsidies, and a federal mandate to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, or 20 years after the Green New Deal resolution’s 2030 goal.

While the Green New Deal has been described by supporters as aspirational, however, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made it clear she intends to enact the policy goals laid out in the 538-page plan, seen as a blueprint for Democrats if former Vice President Joseph R. Biden captures the White House in the November election.

“With your leadership, all of you, we will turn this report into law, into saving the planet,” Mrs. Pelosi said at a press conference on the U.S. Capitol steps. “Democrats know that the climate crisis is the essential crisis of our time, threatening public health, jobs and the economy, national security, and values.”

The plan would also require ending sales of cars that produce greenhouse-gas by 2035 and sales of heavy-duty carbon-emitting trucks by 2040 while eliminating power-plant emissions by 2040.

Committee Republicans balked, saying they were not given an opportunity to amend or vote on the report — or even read it before its release — and blaming Mrs. Pelosi’s House pandemic rules under which “[p]ublic input has been pushed aside in favor of expedited Democratic partisanship.”

They called for relying on technological innovation to reduce emissions, rather than imposing costly regulations and obliterating the oil-and-gas industry, and urged Democrats to take into account the economic destruction wrought by the novel coronavirus shutdown, as well as China’s growing role as a fossil-fuel polluter.

More than 90% of global emissions “will soon originate outside U.S. borders,” said the Republicans, with 105% of emissions growth coming from China and developing economies.

U.S. emissions declined 12% from 2005-17, thanks in large part to the transition from coal to natural gas in power plants.

“Moreover, since 2005, for every ton of emissions reduced by the United States, China has increased its emissions by four tons,” said the Republican statement.

“That increase more than negates U.S. action to reduce emissions. Foreign nations will reject carbon reduction strategies that result in higher energy prices or increased manufacturing costs.”

James Taylor, president of the free-market Heartland Institute, said the report “should be renamed the Make China Great Again Initiative.”

Read rest at Washington Times