Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) on Tuesday claimed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is attempting to “sabotage” the Green New Deal by bringing the far-left proposal to a Senate floor vote.
“Don’t let Mitch McConnell fool you: this is nothing but an attempt to sabotage the movement we are building,” Markey said in a statement shared to social media. “He wants to silence your voice so Republicans don’t have to explain why they are climate change deniers. McConnell wants this to be the end, this is just the beginning.”
“This isn’t a new Republican trick,” he continued. “By rushing a vote on the #GreenNewDeal resolution, Republicans want to avoid a true national debate & kill our efforts to organize. We’re having the first national conversation on climate change in a decade. We can’t let Republicans sabotage it.”
The Massachutts Democrat’s remarks followed a Republican press conference in which McConnell revealed his intention to bring the Green New Deal to a vote. “I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal. And we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate. Give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,” the Senate Minority Leader told reporters on Capitol Hill.
Last Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Markey unveiled a proposal to “transform” the U.S. economy with a “10-year national mobilization” to shift away from fossil fuels and replace them with renewable energy sources.
An outline and FAQ for the proposal detailed eyebrow-raising goals, which included the eventual elimination of “necessary” air travel and “economic security to citizens unable or unwilling to work.” Over the weekend, Ocasio-Cortez attempted to claim that the FAQ, which was given to NPR and other media outlets, is separate from the Green New Deal’s actual objectives.
In a press conference last Thursday, Markey sang a different tune about the proposal’s prospects of becoming law, telling reporters that he believes more Democrats, and even some Republicans, will back the plan.
“This is now a voting issue across the country,” Markey said. “The green generation has risen up and they are saying they want this issue solved” as one of the top two or three issues in the 2020 election. A coalition of labor, economic justice, racial justice, indigenous, and environmental organizations immediately announced their support.
Several Democrat presidential candidates, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), have voiced support for the plan. Campaigning in Mason City, Iowa last Friday, Sen. Cory Booker, another White House contender, (D-NJ) compared the proposal to fighting Nazis. “We have to deal with this. Our planet is in peril, and we need to be bold. It’s one of the reasons I signed on to the resolution. I co-sponsored the resolution for the Green New Deal,” he told attendees. “There’s a lot of people blowing back on the Green New Deal. They’re going, ‘Oh, it’s impractical, oh it’s too expensive, oh it’s all of this.’ If we used to govern our dreams that way, we would have never gone to the moon.”
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