The Green New Deal

Floor Speech

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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, the Senate has unanimously rejected the so-called Green New Deal. In a display of political courage for the ages, 43 Democrats voted present, including many of the bill's own sponsors.

Now, many of them are running for President. In fact, these days, it seems that all of the Democratic Senators are running for President and perhaps may realize what a disaster the Green New Deal is for them.

The Green New Deal would force a transition in just 10 years--one decade--to 100 percent green energy, whatever that is. But it is an impossible goal that would require trillions of dollars of taxes and the effective nationalization of private industry in America.

That is not all--no, not all.

The Green New Deal would also overhaul or rebuild all existing buildings in the United States to achieve maximum energy efficiency-- all--every single home and building in America. I guess you could call it the ``Extreme Home Makeover Mandate.''

The Green New Deal also calls for taxpayer-funded college and jobs for every person in the country, even for illegal aliens and even if you are unable or unwilling to work. That is according to a press release the Democrats sent out and then tried to send down the memory hole when it was justly mocked, and understandably so.

Jobs for everyone who is unable to work and unwilling to work--there is a big difference between those two groups of people.

The radical nature of the Green New Deal cannot be overstated. The amount of control it would give to politicians and planners in Washington would be the envy of Soviet Russia. Actually, it would make Stalin blush. And it would take Stalinist tactics to achieve a Green New Deal.

To borrow from Churchill, ``Socialism may begin with the best of intentions, but it always ends with the Gestapo.'' Who else is going to come into your home and make sure that it is energy compliant? Who else is going to confiscate your gas-using pickup truck? Who else is going to ensure that you don't commit the terrible crime of eating a hamburger?

Perhaps we can come up with a better name for the Green New Deal--one that reflects its true lineage. Might I suggest the Red New Deal, the color of Communist regimes the world over, or perhaps the Green Leap Forward in honor of Mao.

I gather some House freshmen might actually feel pretty comfortable with those labels. They claim these radical ideas are necessary to stop the threat of climate change--a threat so dire, the Democrats insist-- so dire that we will all be dead in 12 years--12 years--if we don't surrender to totalitarian levels of power over our lives to central planners in Washington.

Yet we gave them a chance to vote on this existential, apocalyptic threat and they all said: Meh, maybe later.

So this isn't really about climate change or even the environment. I mean, come on. What do free college for rich kids and guaranteed jobs for lazy bums have to do with climate change?

The answer is: Nothing. And that tells you all you need to know about what the Democrats are up to.

The Green New Deal isn't a real policy proposal. It is just the Democrats' most fanciful and frightful dreams wrapped in one shiny package. I would call it a policy platform, but that would probably give it too much credit for substance.

The President put it very well. He said the Green New Deal is more like an undergraduate term paper, one written late at night after too many bong hits, judging from its botched rollout.

If you really feared a climate catastrophe, you would do a couple of simple things. First, you would build as many new, beautiful, carbon- free nuclear powerplants as you could. But the Green New Deal omits nuclear energy entirely, no doubt to please the Democrats' crony renewable energy lobbyists and the anti-nuclear know-nothings in the Democrats' base.

Second, you would get tough on the world's biggest polluters, especially on China. Foreign nations, after all, have driven almost all of the growth in global carbon emissions since the turn of the century.

But the Green New Dealers seem to believe America is the root of all of the world's problems, even though our emissions have been declining. It is just another case of the Democrats' guiding principle: Blame America first.

Of course, if we did something as stupid as pass the Green New Deal, most foreign nations would just laugh at us and keep building their economies and keep polluting while we tanked our own economy, immiserated our citizens, and lost millions of jobs in pursuit of a fantasy.

The Green New Deal would amount to America's unilateral disarmament on the world stage, which for some Democrats is probably a feature and not a bug. But sometimes even terrible ideas deserve a vote. So we gave them a vote on the Green New Deal, and the bill's own sponsors complained.

In any event, the Senate flunked the Democrats' term paper unanimously, and the only reason the Green New Deal got an F is that there is not a lower grade. So common sense prevailed this time, although I have a feeling this is not the last time we have heard of the Green New Deal.

Remember, this is not the hobby horse of some eccentric socialist fringe of the Democratic Party--oh, no, not at all. The Green New Deal has 90 Democratic cosponsors in the House. That is nearly two out of every five House Democrats, and the Democratic Presidential candidates have rushed to endorse the Green New Deal. Remember that when you step into the voting booth in 2020.

But let me wrap up on a more serious note. I have made a lot of jokes about the Green New Deal, and, believe me, the Green New Deal is laughable. But for many Americans, the Green New Deal is no laughing matter.

Imagine, if you will, a mom and dad and a couple young kids outside Little Rock, let's say. Every day, they drive the kids to school. They commute into the city where they work and back out to the suburbs, just so they can afford a home. When they are home on the weekends, maybe they try to fire up the grill on the patio to have a little cookout for the kids.

This working-class family is doing its best to live the American dream and pass it on to their kids. The Green New Deal is not for that family. It would outlaw their entire way of life, from the minivan in the garage to the hamburgers on their grill, to the house they call home.

The Green New Deal would be a death sentence for America's families. Yet the Democrats have the nerve to sell it as a rescue mission. I reject that fraud on America, and now so does the Senate.

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