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Cities And States Are Scaling Back Their ‘Green’ Ambitions As Costs Skyrocket, Opposition Grows

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/18/green-new-deal-taxpayer-costs/

By MICHAEL BASTASCH

  • Cities and states are having a hard time trying to implement climate policies laid out in the Green New Deal.
  • Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal to transform the U.S. economy.
  • One Texas city’s switch to solar and wind has cost millions and added to residents’ electric bills.

Democrats’ Green New Deal legislation envisions a U.S that eliminates all greenhouse gas emissions through a massive expansion of government control, which includes a green grid, electrified mass transit and high-speed rail.

However, cities and states actually trying to implement these policies are often finding it difficult to overcome political and economic realities.

In the past year, for example, Washington state voters rejected — for a second time — a proposal to tax carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon tax opponents successfully framed the proposal as an energy tax that would raise prices and do nothing for future global warming. The tax was backed by Democrats like Gov. Jay Inslee, who is also mulling a 2020 presidential run.

Inslee, who styles himself as the Democratic “climate candidate,” has also failed to push major climate policies through the legislature and using his own executive authority.

“It shows you how ineffective he’s been even in a state like Washington,” Todd Myers, environmental policy director at the Washington Policy Center, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a recent interview.

Trump holds a discussion about school shootings with state governors from around the country at the White House in Washington

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee (L) listens to participants as U.S. President Donald Trump holds a discussion about school shootings with state governors from around the country at the White House in Washington, U.S. February 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst.

“We’re doing it whether people want it or not,” Myers said of Inslee’s attempts to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions.

The Inslee-backed carbon tax would have cost households an extra $230 per year in 2020, according to the Washington Policy Center. Energy bills, including gasoline prices, will increase because of the tax.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, both Democrats, recently introduced highly-anticipated resolutions for a Green New Deal. Those bills called for the entire U.S. to be powered by “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” within 10 years.

 

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