04.22.21

Dems Agree Biden Infrastructure Plan Is A Stalking Horse For Their Radical Green New Deal

‘The Far Left Sees A Strong Family Resemblance Between These Proposals And Their Socialist Green New Deal. [This Week] The House And Senate Authors Of That Manifesto Reintroduced It, While Noting, And Boasting, That The DNA Of The Green New Deal Is All Over President Biden’s Legislative Proposals’

 

SENATE REPUBLICAN LEADER MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY): “Early on, a major theme of the Biden Administration has been false advertising. We have the so-called ‘COVID relief bill’ that broke a long bipartisan streak on pandemic response and only spent 1% of the money on vaccinations. We have the reintroduction of a sprawling election takeover bill that Democrats wrote years ago under the guise that it’s a common-sense voting rights bill. We have a President who ran on protecting norms flirting with proposals to hot-wire the Senate’s rules and pack the Supreme Court. And then we have the latest example, where even one Ivy League expert says Democrats’ spin ‘does a bit of violence to the English language.’ They’ve assembled a patchwork of left-wing social engineering programs and want to label it ‘infrastructure.’ Now, as I’ve pointed out before, the first notable thing about the Biden Administration’s plan is what it doesn’t focus on. Less than 6% of this alleged “infrastructure” bill would invest in roads and bridges. The total amount of funding it would direct to roads, bridges, ports, waterways, and airports combined adds up to less than what it would spend just on electric cars. The far left sees a strong family resemblance between these proposals and their socialist ‘Green New Deal.’ [On Tuesday] the House and Senate authors of that manifesto reintroduced it, while noting, and boasting, that the DNA of the Green New Deal is all over President Biden’s legislative proposals. No wonder the White House’s document rolling out the President’s bill mentioned the words ‘climate’ and ‘union’ more often than ‘roads’ and ‘bridges’…. And then there are the tax hikes. This proposal is a Trojan horse to roll back the historic 2017 tax reform plan that helped spur big-time wage growth and the best job market in a generation before COVID-19. So the Administration’s proposal bears little resemblance to the bipartisan infrastructure bill Americans need and deserve. It just reads like customer service for the radical fringe.” (Sen. McConnell, Remarks, 4/21/2021)

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY), Senate Energy Committee Ranking Member: “Well, it is back. Back from the liberal bastions of Boston and Brooklyn … today reintroduced in Congress is what I call the Green New Disaster. We’ve seen it before; they’re doing this right as the economy is recovering from the pandemic. So it’s very interesting that if, you know, if you’re somebody that pays taxes, that heats your home, that drives a car you’re going to end up paying more under the Green New Deal introduced today by Ed Markey and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez…. We’re going to be dealing with things called climate justice and punishing regulations and much higher taxes…. But Biden’s positions already because of his executive orders have driven up energy costs … [A] gallon of gasoline’s up about 50 cents a gallon since Inauguration Day. And the Green New Deal isn’t just about costs on things it’s a major expansion of government, a change in the energy that we use, loss of many of our freedoms. I don’t know what it is about the Democrats that they just aren’t happy with America’s energy successes. And as a result they’re willing to kill about a million good paying jobs and kill our ability to have low cost energy.” (Sen. Barrasso, Press Conference, 4/20/2021)

 

Far-Left Democrats Reintroduced Their Radical Green New Deal Proposal This Week, ‘And Are Working To Have Their Climate Priorities Included In Biden’s Upcoming Infrastructure Package’

“Progressive lawmakers, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), on Tuesday formally revived their push for a Green New Deal, leaning into the framework to swiftly transition off fossil fuels … ‘We're going to transition to a 100 percent carbon free-economy, that is more unionized, more just, more dignified and guarantees more health care and housing than we ever have before,’ Ocasio-Cortez said at a press conference overlooking the National Mall. ‘Do we intend on sending a message to the Biden administration that we need to go bigger and bolder? The answer is absolutely yes.’” (“Progressives Formally Reintroduce The Green New Deal,” Politico, 4/20/2021)

“The revival of the plan, two years after it was blocked in the then-GOP controlled Senate, precedes a virtual international summit that Biden is convening with world leaders this week coinciding with Earth Day. The administration is expected to use the summit to unveil its goal for reducing greenhouse gases, a key part of the Paris climate accord that Biden had the U.S. rejoin on his first day in office.” (“Ocasio-Cortez, Progressives Push Anew for Green New Deal,” Bloomberg News, 4/20/2021)

 

Green New Deal Sponsors Proclaim ‘That’s The DNA Of The Green New Deal’ In Biden Infrastructure Proposals, ‘It’s A Way Of Accomplishing Many Of The Goals Of The Green New Deal’

SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA), Green New Deal Sponsor: “The Biden Administration is including climate action, environmental justice, and the care economy in its recovery plans. That’s the DNA of the Green New Deal that we introduced.” (Sen. Markey, Press Conference, 4/20/2021)

THE NEW YORK TIMES: “[President Biden’s] advisers are preparing a set of proposals intended to reshape the U.S. economy and other parts of American life…. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Times’s Lisa Friedman that she was encouraged by what she had heard about the infrastructure policies and likened them to her Green New Deal plan.” (“Biden’s Big Plan,” The New York Times, 3/23/2021)

  • REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY), Green New Deal Sponsor: “One of the big goals we had when we introduced the Green New Deal was to show how people thought about climate change from being a billion dollar problem to a trillion-dollar opportunity…. This infrastructure package generally seems to be shaping up in that kind of framework.” (“Biden’s Big Plan,” The New York Times, 3/23/2021)

SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): “The Biden administration will seek big climate elements in the infrastructure bill, to the point where it might even be called a climate infrastructure bill.” (“Markey And Progressive Democrats See Infrastructure Bill As A Way To Accomplish Green New Deal Goals,” The Boston Globe, 3/28/2021)

SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION PETE BUTTIGIEG: “I’ve heard it said that the American Jobs Plan should be about roads and bridges but should not address climate change…. The truth is that every infrastructure decision is already, inevitably, a climate decision as well. Our choices on roads, bridges and other infrastructure must recognize and reduce the very real threat that climate change poses to American lives and livelihoods.” (U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, 4/20/2021)

 

Key Biden Administration Officials Keep Saying That The ‘Idea Of Infrastructure’ ‘Should Evolve’ And ‘Expand The Horizon’

PRESIDENT BIDEN: “The idea of infrastructure has always evolved to meet the aspirations of the American people and their needs, and it’s evolving again today.” (Remarks by President Biden on the American Jobs Plan, Washington, DC, 4/07/2021)

WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY JEN PSAKI: “Our view — [the president’s] view is we don’t just fix what is broken today, we build for tomorrow.  And his idea of infrastructure is evolving — is that it should evolve to address the needs of the American people.” (White House Press Briefing, 4/07/2021)

SECRETARY OF ENERGY JENNIFER GRANHOLM: “I mean, what is infrastructure? … You need to make sure that people can actually go to work if they have an aging parent or a child. This is -- as the president said this week, that infrastructure evolves to meet the American people’s aspirations. And it’s not static…. We don’t want to use past definitions of infrastructure, when we are moving into the future …” (ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” 4/11/2021)

SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION PETE BUTTIGIEG: “As the Secretary of Transportation, I’m especially enthusiastic about what it means for roads, bridges, ports, waterways, airports, rail and--and transit, but I think it would be a terrible mistake for us to suppose that that’s all there is to infrastructure. Much has been said about the term traditional infrastructure, but America’s greatest tradition of visionary infrastructure investments has always included decisions that expand the horizon.” (U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, 4/20/2021)

SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT MARCIA FUDGE: “The plan lays the foundation for decades of economic growth and reflects what I believe are fundamental truths that the definition of infrastructure has evolved and that indeed housing is infrastructure. … To put it simply, the American Jobs Plan advances physical infrastructure that lays the foundation for human infrastructure. Our country cannot afford to look backward at what we once viewed as the definition of infrastructure. The future of our great nation rests on the decisions we make today.” (U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, 4/20/2021)

NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR BRIAN DEESE: “Well, look, I think we really need to update what we mean by infrastructure in the 21st Century… We believe that the infrastructure of our care economy is something we have to take very seriously. If anybody out there, many of your viewers who are parents, who are taking care of an elderly parent or an adult child with disabilities, they know that if you don’t have an infrastructure of care to support your loved ones, you can’t effectively work. You can’t effectively interact in the 21st Century economy. So, I think investing in the infrastructure of care.” (Fox News’ “Fox News Sunday,” 4/04/2021)

 

Democrats On The Green New Deal: ‘It’s Not A Messaging Bill,’ ‘You Cannot Go Too Far On The Issue Of Climate Change,’ ‘We Cannot Compromise,’ ‘Give Us Some Of That Socialism’

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): “Well, I mean, first and foremost, this is legislation. It’s not a messaging bill. … So when it comes to are we going to be put on the spot, to me, the greatest risk is doing nothing on climate or doing too little. That is a greater political risk…” (Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Press Conference, 4/20/2021)

THE VIEW’S SUNNY HOSTIN: “Does the Green New Deal go too far?”
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): “No. You cannot go too far on the issue of climate change.” (“Sanders Says Green New Deal Doesn’t Go Too Far: You Can’t Go ‘Too Far’ on Climate Change,” Mediaite, 3/01/2019)

SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): “They call the Green New Deal pie in the sky. They call it socialism! … So here’s what I say for wind and solar and all electric vehicles and clean energy: give us some of that socialism …” (Justice Democrats, @justicedems, Twitter, 5/14/2019)

  • MARKEY: “Intersectional is foundational. The power of the wind, the power of the sun to be matched by the power of the people. It is possible to find middle ground in many areas of politics, I know because I have done it, but we cannot compromise away math or morality. We cannot compromise on science, policies will take steps to save the planet or they will not. We cannot compromise on justice, policies are equitable or they are not. We cannot compromise on the fate of our planet and the fate of human civilization.” (Sen. Markey, Press Conference, 4/20/2021)

CNN’s ANDERSON COOPER: “You’re not saying that you support everything in the original Green New Deal. Do you think it goes too far? Is it unrealistic, promising too much?”
JOE BIDEN: “No, it’s not…. And so the idea -- I think the Green New Deal deserves an enormous amount of credit for bringing this to a head in a way that it hasn’t been before. It hasn’t been. But the reason -- I don’t know, I’m not opposed to the Green New Deal. What I did was went, I thought, beyond -- at least in more detail what the Green New Deal is calling for, how to do the things we need to do, when they have to be done, how quickly we should move, how much we should invest, et cetera.” (CNN Town Hall, 9/04/2019)

FLASHBACK: Green New Deal Supporters Admit, ‘We Really Think Of It As A How-Do-You-Change-The-Entire-Economy Thing,’ ‘A New, All-Encompassing Domestic Agenda’

SAIKAT CHAKRABARTI, Former Chief of Staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY): “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all…. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.” (“AOC’s Chief of Change,” The Washington Post Magazine, 7/10/2019)

“New Consensus aims to be the policy quarterback for the Green New Deal. It wants to combine ideas from dozens of fields—including economics, sociology, ecology, and climate science—to write a new, all-encompassing domestic agenda. It promotes industrial policy, a school of thought that says a country should invest public dollars in its high-tech manufacturing capacity to flourish.” (“The Think Tank Struggling to Write the Green New Deal,” The Atlantic, 6/12/2019)

 

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SENATE REPUBLICAN COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

Related Issues: Green New Deal, Infrastructure