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This morning, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released an
overview of her “Green New Deal” which threatens "a massive transformation of our society." Below are the details of the proposal.
Rebuild every single building in the U.S.
“Upgrade or replace every building in US for state-of-the-art energy efficiency.”
Will end all traditional forms of energy in the next ten years.
The Green New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
Plans to ban nuclear energy within 10 years if possible.
“It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”
Build trains across oceans and end all air travel!
“Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary”.
Don’t invest in new technology of Carbon Capture and Storage, just plant trees instead!
“We believe the right way to capture carbon is to plant trees and restore our natural ecosystems. CCUS technology to date has not proven effective.”
Mandates all new jobs be unionized.
“Ensure that all GND jobs are union jobs that pay prevailing wages and hire local.”
May include a carbon tax.
“We’re not ruling a carbon tax out, but a carbon tax would be a tiny part of a Green New Deal.”
May include cap and trade.
“…Cap and trade may be a tiny part of the larger Green New Deal plan.”
How much will it cost?
No estimate of the total cost of implementing the Green New deal is offered by Ocasio-Cortez.
However, as Ocasio-Cortez admits, “even if every billionaire and company came together and were willing to pour all the resources at their disposal into this investment, the aggregate value of the investments they could make would not be sufficient.”
She does provide one estimate that the cost to “repair and upgrade infrastructure U.S. infrastructure” alone will cost “$4.6 trillion at minimum.”
How will it be paid for? Don’t worry about that.
Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t provide any insight into how the trillions of dollars in spending will be paid for other than claiming, “The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit”.
But as Ocasio-Cortez says, “the question isn’t how will we pay for it, but what will we do with our new shared prosperity”.
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