The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“The Green New Deal (Executive Session)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Senate section on pages S1808-S1809 on March 13, 2019.
The Department oversees energy policies and is involved in how the US handles nuclear programs. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, said the Department's misguided energy regulations have caused large losses to consumers for decades.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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, 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.
