Members of the progressive “Squad” rallied Tuesday around a new push for the “Green New Deal” with separate bills for public housing, a civil climate corps and funding for cities.
“For so long, our movement towards a sustainable future has been divided with really just the wrong idea that we have to choose between our planet and our economy,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y. at a press conference in DC
“ And we decided to come together in sweeping legislation that not only rejects that idea, but creates a plan for 20 million union jobs in the United States of America to rebuild our infrastructure, restore public housing, to make it happen. ensure that we expand our access. not just for EV [electric vehicles] and EV infrastructure, but public transport. “
She stood next to Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., Who helped introduce the original Green New Deal and co-sponsored a bill to create climate-related jobs.
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Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal Week” comes as the Biden government is mandating a $ 2.3 trillion infrastructure package that can be criticized among Democrats for not going far enough in spending. Her public housing legislation, co-sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Is said to triple the amount proposed by Biden.
Markey announced on Tuesday that he would push Biden to expand his ambitions, noting that the president’s policies included the “ DNA of the Green New Deal. ”
“The Biden government is incorporating climate action, environmental justice and the care economy into its recovery plan,” he said. “That’s the DNA of the Green New Deal we introduced.”
The ambitious reform plan is unlikely to have much success in a congress bitterly divided over both infrastructure and climate. While Republicans have long denounced the original Green New Deal, they have already criticized Biden’s proposal to overspend.
However, progressives have insisted that the scope of climate mitigation must respond to what they call an “existential crisis.” Ocasio-Cortez and fellow Squad member Cori Bush, D-Mo., Are co-sponsors of legislation that would allow $ 1 trillion towards the Green New Deal for Cities Act.
Bush promised at Tuesday’s press conference that her legislation would “immediately fund a Green New Deal in every city, city, state, tribe and territory.”
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Behind the Republican opposition lies concerns about its feasibility. The large-scale government regulation involved, critics say, would limit freedoms and cause serious financial damage to the country.
During the campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden said he would use the Green New Deal as a framework for his climate plan, although his proposal cost significantly less than other plans that used that framework. Regardless, Biden’s plan focuses on the kind of economic transformation advocated by more left-wing members of his party.