Far-left groups this week unveiled a new “pledge” challenging congressional representatives and candidates to formally commit to the Green New Deal (GND). While the pledge constitutes advocates’ attempt to lock in future support for their radical energy and environmental agenda, in the short run, their timing couldn’t be worse. The New Republic describes the “prospects for comprehensive climate legislation looking dim.” Indeed, in the face of record high energy prices, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm recently vowed “we have to responsibly increase short-term supply.” That’s the opposite of the GND agenda, which calls for the end of fossil fuels, not more extraction. For example, one GND bill is titled simply the “Keep It in the Ground Act.”
Here are the nine bills that “Green New Deal champions” pledge to cosponsor:
| Green New Deal bill and sponsor(s) | Description |
| Green New Deal Resolution (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Ed Markey) | States that “It is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal,” whose goals include “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” that “should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization” akin to World War II. |
| Green New Deal for Cities (Cori Bush) | Authorizes $1 trillion in GND spending in 2022–2025 for cities and other areas. However, funding is prohibited for “fossil fuel procurement, development, infrastructure repair that would in anyway [sic] extend lifespan or production capacity, or any related subsidy,” among other purposes. |
| Green New Deal for Public Schools (Jamaal Bowman) | Authorizes over $1.4 trillion in GND spending over 10 years, including for the construction of new “healthy zero carbon schools.” Funds would also “increase the ability of the United States public school system . . . to advance climate justice and environmental justice.” |
| Green New Deal for Public Housing (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Bernie Sanders) | Proposes “to transition the entire public housing stock of the United States, as swiftly and seamlessly as possible, into highly energy-efficient homes that produce on-site, or procure, enough carbon-free renewable energy to meet total energy consumption annually.” Authorizes unlimited federal funds over the next 10 years for “Green New Deal Public Housing Grants.” |
| BUILD GREEN Infrastructure and Jobs Act (Andy Levin / Elizabeth Warren) | Creates a “Green Transportation Infrastructure Grant Program,” authorizing $500 billion over 10 years — including at least $150 billion for “the purchase of electric vehicles and electric vehicle supply equipment.” |
| Farm System Reform Act (Ro Khanna / Cory Booker) | Places “a moratorium on large concentrated animal feeding operations” and states that all such operations must cease by 2040. |
| Civilian Climate Corps for Jobs and Justice Act (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez / Ed Markey) | Provides over $100 billion through 2025 for “retraining and support” to assist, among others, “displaced or unemployed workers” due to GND policies. |
| Environmental Justice for All Act (Raul Grijalva / Tammy Duckworth) | Creates multiple new federal agencies, programs, and mandates designed to “restore, reaffirm, and reconcile environmental justice and civil rights.” |
| End Polluter Welfare Act (Ilhan Omar / Bernie Sanders) | Eliminates “subsidies for fossil-fuel production.” |
| Keep it in the Ground Act (Jared Huffman / Jeff Merkley) | Prohibits “issuing any new lease or renewing any nonproducing lease for coal, oil, or natural gas in any Federal land or waters,” among other purposes. |
Estimates for the total cost of these policies over just the first 10 years reach $94 trillion — more than 16 times the federal legislative response to the pandemic. As Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggested in 2019, the legislation would guarantee “economic security” even to those who are “unwilling to work,” requiring the creation of massive new welfare programs along the way.
The pledge notes that signers “should also co-sponsor supplemental legislation that aligns with the vision and ambition of the Green New Deal.” Apparently that “vision and ambition” knows few bounds, since the supplemental legislation includes bills guaranteeing Medicare for All, allowing 16-year-olds to vote, and creating a 32-hour work week. Pledge signers are also expected to “champion new pieces of legislation that fulfill the vision and ambition of the Green New Deal” in the future. That is, pledge signers must agree to support legislation that hasn’t even been drafted yet!
If all that sounds like an open-ended commitment to support the far-left policy playbook, you’ve broken the code. But it also reflects how, just behind recent expressions of support for temporarily increasing oil and gas supply, there lurks a progressive vision of permanently “keeping it in the ground.” That would result in staggering costs for taxpayers as well as perpetually high energy prices, which disproportionately harm low-income households. It’s cold comfort that the GND would offer “severance payments” to tens of thousands made unemployed “as a result of a downturn in fossil fuel mining, extraction, or production” directly resulting from these policies.
Especially if record gas prices and historic inflation continue through this year, the “Green New Deal champions pledge” could affect far more than just the political fringe inclined to sign it. Just like those tarred with surging crime rates in the wake of efforts to defund the police, many Democrats who never even considered signing this pledge could find themselves similarly yoked to its radical, and extraordinarily expensive, agenda.
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