[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 45 (Wednesday, March 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1808-S1809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           The Green New Deal

  Madam President, now one final matter. Yesterday, I continued the 
discussion we have been having about the strange ideas that seem to 
have taken ahold of Washington Democrats.
  Ideas like the Democrat politician protection act, a scheme to limit 
America's First Amendment right to political speech and force taxpayers 
to subsidize political campaigns, including ones they disagree with. It 
did not earn a single Republican vote in the House, by the way. Thank 
goodness.
  Ideas like Medicare for None, which could spend more than $32 
trillion to hollow out seniors' health benefits and boot working 
families from their chosen plans into a one-size-fits-all government 
scheme.
  Even the soaring costs and massive disruption that plan would cause 
American families are dwarfed--dwarfed--by the grandiose scheme they 
are marketing as the Green New Deal.
  By now, we are all familiar with the major thrust of the proposal: 
powering down the U.S. economy, and yet somehow also creating 
government-directed economic security for everyone--for everyone--at 
the same time.
  Naturally, accomplishing all this is quite a tall order. According to 
the Democrats' resolution, it will require overhauling every building 
in America to meet strict new codes, overseen, of course, by social 
planners here in Washington. It would require banning the production of 
American coal, oil, and natural gas in 10 short years and cracking down 
on transportation systems that produce any emissions, which, as one 
hastily deleted background document made clear, is just a polite way of 
saying Democrats want to eventually ban anything with a motor that runs 
on gasoline. They want to ban anything with a motor that runs on 
gasoline.

  I thought ``Abolish ICE'' was bad enough when Democrats were rallying 
to close down all of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but now what 
do we get? The far left also wants to abolish the internal combustion 
engine. I gather somewhere around that time is when the miraculous, 
promised universal job guarantee would kick in as well. It is just a 
good, old-fashioned, state-planned economy--garden-variety 21st-century 
socialism.
  Our Democratic colleagues have taken all the debunked philosophies of 
the last 100 years, rolled them into one giant package, and thrown a 
little ``green'' paint on them to make them look new, but there is 
nothing remotely new about a proposal to centralize control over the 
economy and raise taxes on the American people to pay for it.
  Margaret Thatcher famously said that the trouble with socialist 
governments is ``they always run out of other people's money.'' How 
often have we heard that? Well, this dangerous fantasy would burn 
through the American people's money before it even got off the 
launchpad.
  The cost to the Treasury is just the beginning. It is hard to put a 
price tag on ripping away the jobs and livelihoods of literally 
millions of Americans. It is hard to put a price tag on forcibly 
remodeling Americans' homes whether they want it or not and taking away 
their cars whether they want that or not. It certainly is difficult to 
put a price tag on unilaterally disarming the entire U.S. economy with 
this kind of self-inflicted wound while other nations, such as China, 
go roaring by--roaring by.
  By definition, global emissions are a global problem. Even if we 
grant the Democrats' unproven claim that cratering American industries 
and outlawing the energy sources that middle-class families can afford 
would produce the kinds of emissions changes they are after, we need to 
remember that the United States is only responsible for about 15 
percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions--only 15 percent of the 
global total.
  According to the Department of Energy, the United States cut our own 
energy-related carbon emissions by 14 percent from 2005 to 2017. So we 
cut carbon emissions in this country significantly from 2005 to 2017. 
Well, it is appropriate to ask, what did the rest of the world do? They 
kept soaring higher and higher.
  In the same period that the United States cut our energy-related 
carbon emissions by 14 percent, the International Energy Agency found 
that worldwide, energy-related carbon emissions rose by 20 percent 
everywhere else. China--the world's largest carbon emitter--increased 
its emissions dramatically over that period. So, believe me, if 
Democrats succeeded at slowing the U.S. economy and cutting our 
prosperity because they think it will save the planet, China will not 
pull over by the side of the road to keep us company; they will go 
roaring right by us.
  The proposal we are talking about is, frankly, delusional--absolutely 
delusional. It is so unserious that it ought to be beneath one of our 
two major political parties to line up behind it.
  The Washington Post editorial board--not exactly a bastion of 
conservatism--dismissed the notion that ``the country could reach net-
zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030'' as ``an impossible goal.''
  In a clear sign of how rapidly Democrats are racing to the far left, 
President Obama's own Energy Secretary said the same thing. He said: 
``I just cannot see how we could possibly go to zero carbon in the 10-
year timeframe.''
  These Washington Democrats' leftward sprint is leaving Obama 
administration officials in the dust and even parts of their own base. 
Listen to what Democrats' usual Big Labor allies have to say about this 
socialist nightmare. Union leaders with the AFL-CIO say this proposal 
``could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their 
families.'' That is what the AFL-CIO union leaders said. Immediate harm 
to American workers,

[[Page S1809]]

American farmers, American families, and America's future, and nowhere 
near enough reduction in global emissions to show for it. It is a self-
inflicted wound for the low price, by one estimate, of somewhere in the 
neighborhood of $93 trillion.
  This is not based on logic or reason; it is just based on the 
prevailing fashions in New York and San Francisco. That is what is 
defining today's Democrats.