Let's talk about the Green New Deal and climate change policy in a larger sense! First off - what IS the Green New Deal? It's three words that like a lot of political conjuring spells mean whatever you, in your heart of hearts, want them to mean. Seriously. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a whole page on her website dedicated to creating a House Subcommittee to create the Green New Deal legislation. But aside from a plan to craft a plan, there's not much substance. Sean McElwee is co-author on a pretty loose white paper from a thinktank called Data For Progress, that lays out some VERY vague generalized goals on climate change. Also endorsing the magical conjuring spell is Jill Stein and the Green Party (most famous for, you know, sandbagging actual progressive politics at every turn).
The central tenets of the term seem to go something like: radical overhaul of entire US economy in order to solve climate change within 10 years of enacting the plan that we will draw up at a later date. Worth noting that Data for Progress has more realistic targets (100% renewable by 2050) but also some pretty wild ones. It's called the Green New Deal to conjure up wistful reminiscences of Franklin Roosevelt and the original New Deal.
First off - the process argument. A 15-member standing committee on implementing some vague ideas of legislation is a waste of time, energy, and Congressional resources. Pelosi has already pledged to reinstate the House Subcommittee on Climate Change, and even THAT move has gotten pushback as being unnecessarily bureaucratic. I'm happy to see the committee reinstated and I look forward to the work product it develops. Fortunately, we already have the 2009 American Energy and Security Act, passed by Nancy Pelosi, as a starting point for new - and more aggressive - climate change legislation.
Second - 100% renewable energy in 10 years is not exactly a pipe dream. It's just akin to the Stalinist programs when Stalin decided to move Russia aggressively into the 20th Century. And it's worth noting that from Stalin's point of view, he was VERY effective at modernizing the USSR. He was also responsible for 20 million or more deaths. But, you know, guided economies carry sacrifices. We could also just forcibly resettle everyone in Alaska and Oregon, close the states to human development, and let them turn into giant carbon sinks. From a purely economical standpoint, 100% renewable in ten years would cost (by back-of-the-napkin estimates) around 30 trillion dollars. The US budget in 2018 is just over 4 trillion dollars. So to achieve this goal we'd have to basically double the US budget. Without revenue increases to offset the spending, that's *more than* doubling our national deficit (from 1 trillion to 3-3.5 trillion).
By all major accounts we are running out of time to deal with global climate change. But there are sensible, feasible ways to address the problem and contain it, and then there are Stalinist ways to do it. If promoting the former over the latter makes me a Centrist, then...fine, I guess?
What should a 21st Century climate change bill look like? Like most problems there aren't simple solutions that fit on bumper stickers. So in broad strokes:
1. Start with broad targets - 100% renewable energy generation by 2050, 50% renewable energy generation by 2030 nationwide. Once those targets are established we can move more aggressively to revise them down (in a perfect world I'd like 100% by 2035, but it's unlikely that California can even hit that target).
2. Huge investments in infrastructure and green energy offset by new revenue streams either by taxing the rich or instituting a carbon tax (I know I know, this will never pass the current Senate, but let me dream for a minute). Our power grid is a relic of the 70s and needs to be completely overhauled. It needs to be better managed and more regionalized and localized. That way we can pair local sources of renewable energy (wind and solar) with national sources (nuclear, natural gas, etc). It would make the grid more flexible in the sources it draws on so that we don't have blackouts and brownouts. As part of this we'd have to shift where the main generation of electricity is to places like the Great Plains (wind corridor) and the Southwest (best place for solar). I'd put a hundred billion a year for 10 years into this and find places to raise a trillion dollars in new revenue (repeal the Bush 03 tax cuts on the top 20% of the population and it'll give us ~half a trillion/year in new revenue).
3. Legislate stricter automotive standards. Right now fuel economy standards are set by the EPA - Congress could pass a law outlining specific targets that go above and beyond Obama's targets. We have the technology to make every fleet average 85 MPG, we just lack the political willpower to do it.
4. Once the broad strokes of a national plan are matriculating in Congress (since at the EARLIEST we can't pass this bill until 2021), the power goes to the states. Democrats in 2019 will have governing trifectas in 14 states (both chambers of legislature and governor). Go to the state level and create either state or regional cap-and-trade programs (like the one California has) and a regional green energy power-sharing program (a version of this exists in the Northeast). Make each state set their target dates for renewable energy generation. Let states pass new state-level taxes to pay for more green energy infrastructure. Washington keeps trying to pass a carbon tax, but no luck yet. Focusing on sweeping national solutions to the problem is good but we're hamstrung by the make-up of Congress for at least 2 years and likely more (Joe Manchin won't be a reliable vote on taxing coal mines). But what Democrats DO have is a tremendous amount of power at the state levels - despite only controlling 14 states, it'll cover something like 1/3 of the US population. We should be aggressively laying the groundwork NOW so that when a Democratic President signs a 100 by 50 bill, it won't seem even remotely outlandish.
It's great that people are calling attention to the challenges of climate change. We need big, sweeping ideas on how to address it. We really are running out of time. None of that is in dispute. But we can't sit around and wait for the federal government to solve our problems and we can't pin our hopes on a program that's so aggressive it's Stalin-esque. See if your state has a trifecta in 2019. Call your local reps. Find out which of them has the best pro-environmental voting record. Do the organizing on the ground. We can make serious gains on this front in the next 2 years while Trump is still in office. Magical conjuring words are nice but they aren't specific and they aren't achievable. Find the specifics, find the achievable model, and implement it at the state level. And then harass Congress to pass a bill that will give the federal government the tools to tackle this on a larger scale.