VOTE ON THE GREEN NEW DEAL
www.wsj.com/articles/vote-on-the-green-new-deal-11549931107
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Vote on the Green New Deal
Every Member of Congress should step up and be counted.
Editorial Board February 12, 2019
Democrats rolled out their Green New Deal last week, and by all means let’s have a national debate and then a vote in Congress—as soon as possible. Here in one package is what the political left really means when it says Americans need to do something urgently about climate change, so let’s see who has the courage of those convictions.
Thanks to the resolution introduced last week by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, there’s already official language. While it’s nonbinding, the 14 pages give a clear sense of direction and magnitude in calling for a “10-year national mobilization” to exorcise carbon from the U.S. economy.
President Obama’s Clean Power Plan looks modest by comparison. The 10-year Green New Deal calls for generating 100% of power from renewables and removing greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and transportation—to the extent these goals are “technologically feasible.” Hint: They’re not.
The plan also calls for “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort and durability, including through electrification.” That’s all existing buildings, comrade.
Millions of jobs would have to be destroyed en route to this brave new green world, but not to worry. The resolution says the government would also guarantee “a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.” Good that they’re starting small.
Sorry to mention unhappy reality, but renewable sources currently make up only 17% of U.S. electric-power generation despite enormous federal and state subsidies. Wind and solar energy have become more competitive over the last decade as costs have plunged. But without subsidies, solar costs remain about 20% higher than natural gas while offshore wind is two-thirds more expensive. The bigger problem is solar and wind don’t provide reliable power, so backup plants that burn fossil fuels are required to run on stand-by.
Germany has been gracious enough to show what can go wrong. Despite aggressive emissions goals, Germany’s carbon emissions have been flat for most of the last decade as the country had to fall back on coal to balance off-shore wind generation. Last year Germany derived 29% of its power from wind and solar, but 38% from coal.
Meantime, taxes and rising power-generation costs have made Germany’s electric rates the highest in Europe, slamming small manufacturers and consumers.
“The drag on competitiveness is particularly severe for small and middle-sized firms,” Eric Schweitzer, President of Germany’s Chambers of Commerce, told Bloomberg News last year. German manufacturing has become less competitive due to soaring energy costs. Electric and natural gas prices in Germany are two to three times higher than in the U.S.
By contrast, the U.S. is having a modest manufacturing renaissance as shale drilling has created a cheap source of lower-carbon energy. Natural-gas prices have plunged by half over the last decade as production has increased 50%, mostly in the Marcellus and Utica formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Carbon emissions from power generation have fallen by 30% since 2005, mostly due to the substitution of coal with natural gas.
Meantime, oil production in Texas’s Permian and North Dakota’s Bakken shale deposits has soared 80%. Demand for drills, pipelines and other mining equipment has also boosted U.S. growth.
The Green New Deal means that all of this carbon energy and all of these jobs would have to be purged—at least in the U.S. China would suffer no such limits on its fossil-fuel production. Conservatives have long suspected that progressives want to use climate change to justify a government takeover of the free-market economy, but we never thought they’d be this candid about it.
Yet, remarkably, the Green New Deal has been met with hosannas from liberal interest groups and in Congress. It already has 67 co-sponsors in the House and the support of 11 Democrats in the Senate including presidential candidates Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.
So let’s not hesitate. Take the Green New Deal resolution and put it to a vote forthwith on the House and Senate floor
