Former Vice President Al Gore believes the Green New Deal (GND) could be a winning issue for Democrats come 2020.
The GND is a “broad brushstroke, bold proclamation, the details of which are designed to be filled in later,” Gore told Politico Friday. He believes Democratic candidates should use the legislation to help generate enthusiasm before next year’s election, Politico reported.
Gore also suggested Republicans are flipping on climate change. “We’re not that far away from a restoration of bipartisan support, particularly since Mother Nature is getting everybody’s attention with these fires and floods and hurricanes,” he told reporters.
Republicans in the Senate torpedoed the activist-backed legislation in March as Democrats called the vote a dog-and-pony show. The GOP defeated the proposal 57 to 0 while Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill a socialistic ploy designed to kill the economy.
The resolution, introduced in February by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, called for “10-year national mobilizations” toward addressing climate change. A fact sheet published alongside the proposal claimed the plan would “mobilize every aspect of American society on a scale not seen since World War 2.”
The GND would reportedly phase out fossil fuel usage within 12 years, but could cost tens of trillions of dollars, some reports show. Americans could be forced to pay up to $93 trillion to implement the proposal over a decade, the conservative-leaning American Action Forum (AAF) noted in a study in February.
Critics claim that number is exaggerated as the proposal is still in the preliminary stages.
Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who have both announced their bids for the 2020 nomination, for instance, signed on as Senate co-sponsors of the proposal before it met its demise in the Senate.
Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont introduced a different version of the GND in November. The new version calls for a $180 billion investment to retrofit public housing to eliminate all carbon emissions.
The housing units would use solar panels and other green energy resources to meet those goals.
Gore has not responded to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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