Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that he would force the Senate to vote on the sweeping climate change and economic overhaul proposal introduced last week by Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.
McConnell said during a press conference that he would send the Green New Deal to the Senate floor “to give everybody an opportunity to go on record…see how they feel about” it, which CNN writes is a tactic he often employs to put vulnerable opponents on the record supporting or opposing controversial policies.
Republicans have already taken issue with the proposal and tried to present it as something that would take away from people. President Donald Trump said during a rally Monday that the resolution was “socialism” and told his supporters, “I really don’t like their policies of taking away your car, taking away your airplane flights, of ‘let’s hop a train to California’, or ‘you’re not allowed to own cows anymore’!”
The so-called Green New Deal aims to eliminate emissions completely and shift the nation to renewable sources of energy as well as revamp infrastructure in the country. The proposal has become a key policy initiative for Ocasio-Cortez, who shortly after being elected in November joined the Sunrise Movement to protest climate change.
“Republicans don’t want to debate climate change, they only want to deny it,” Markey said in a statement. “They have offered no plan to address this economic and national security threat and want to sabotage any effort that makes Big Oil and corporate polluters pay.”
Democratic liberals, some of which are running for president, have voiced their support of the legislation. Some more moderate Democrats, however, have noted that the proposal was just a “green dream” with little prospects of coming to fruition.
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