The Nickel Report

On Wednesday, February 7, Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced a federal resolution to recognize a “duty” of the federal government to create a Green New Deal (GND). This blog discussed the GND in a post on the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis on January 31.

Addressing climate change may be a primary focus of the resolution, but “green” is perhaps a misnomer, as the resolution calls for action on issues well beyond climate or the environment generally. To effectuate the GND, the resolution calls for measures, among other things, including:

• Creating jobs, including “guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, and retirement security to all people of the United States;”
• “Building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food;”
• “Providing all people of the United States with high-quality health care;”
• “Providing all people of the United States with affordable, safe, and adequate housing;”
• Stopping “historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth;”
• Assuring “universal access to healthy food;”
• “Strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;”
• Ensuring “access to nature;”
• Stopping eminent domain abuse;
• Assuring business competition that is “free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies;" and
• “Providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States.”

Among its climate-related and environmental ambitions, the GND calls, among other things, for:

• A “10-year national mobilization:”
  • “Eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible;”
  • “Guaranteeing universal access to clean water;”
  • “Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources;”
  • “Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States;”
  • “Working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector;”
  • “Overhauling transportation systems,” including through investment in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure, public transit, and high-speed rail;
  • Restoring ecosystems;
  • Cleaning up hazardous waste sites;
• Addressing clean air and water generally, and protecting public lands, waters, and oceans;
• Investment through public sources and institutions; and
• Providing worker training.

Such broad proposals often face difficulty attracting sufficient consensus to gain approval. The resolution is attached here.