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Date: 2024-12-26 Page is: DBtxt003.php L0700-II-GND-2019CR-analysis-preamble-01a
INTERESTING IDEAS
THE GREEN NEW DEAL
TVM analysis of the Congressional Resolution of 2019
1. Note that this is a 'Resolution' of Congress and not a 'Bill'. This is an important distinction, but the fact that it was voted on and passed with a vote of ... ayes and only ... nays is encouraging. It is worthy of note that the vote was almost 100% along party lines.
2. It should also be noted that this Resolution has been referred to the following committees:
  • Committee on Energy and Commerce,
  • Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
  • Committee on Education and Labor,
  • Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
  • Committee on Agriculture,
  • Committee on Natural Resources,
  • Committee on Foreign Affairs,
  • Committee on Financial Services,
  • Committee on the Judiciary,
  • Committee on Ways and Means, and
  • Committee on Oversight and Reform,
This suggests that the Green New Deal is intended to have very broad scope and address not only the little things at the margin, but the major systemic issues of the socio-enviro-economic system.

There is no reference to labor, which may be a simple oversight. This needs to be addressed in the future as the initiative goes forward.

THE WHEREAS SECTION
3. The first part of the 'WHEREAS' section of the resolution describes the many reasons why a Green New Deal is needed according to the experts of the IPCC in 2018.
  1. human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century;

  2. a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure;

  3. global warming at or above 2 degrees Celsius beyond preindustrialized levels will cause:
    1. mass migration from the regions most affected by climate change;
    2. more than $500 billion in lost annual economic output in the United States by the year 2100;
    3. wildfires that, by 2050, will annually burn at least twice as much forest area in the western United States than was typically burned by wildfires in the years preceding 2019;
    4. a loss of more than 99 percent of all coral reefs on Earth;
    5. more than 350 million more people to be exposed globally to deadly heat stress by 2050; and
    6. a risk of damage to $1trillion of public infrastructure and coastal real estate in the United States; and

  4. global temperatures must be kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrialized levels to avoid the most severe impacts of a changing climate, which will require:
    1. global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030; and
    2. net-zero global emissions by 2050;
4. Whereas, because the United States has historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions, having emitted 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014, and has a high technological capacity, the United States must take a leading role in reducing emissions through economic transformation;

5. Whereas the United States is currently experiencing several related crises, with—
  1. life expectancy declining while basic needs, such as clean air, clean water, healthy food, and adequate health care, housing, transportation, and education, are inaccessible to a significant portion of the United States population;

  2. a 4-decade trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization, and antilabor policies that has led to—
    1. hourly wages overall stagnating since the 1970s despite increased worker productivity;
    2. the third-worst level of socioeconomic mobility in the developed world before the Great Recession;
    3. the erosion of the earning and bargaining power of workers in the United States; and
    4. inadequate resources for public sector workers to confront the challenges of climate change at local, State, and Federal levels; and

  3. the greatest income inequality since the 1920s, with—
    1. the top 1 percent of earners accruing 91 percent of gains in the first few years of economic recovery after the Great Recession;
    2. a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family; and
    3. a gender earnings gap that results in women earning approximately 80 percent as much as men, at the median;
6. Whereas climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘systemic injustices’’) by disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’);

7. Whereas, climate change constitutes a direct threat to the national security of the United States—
  1. by impacting the economic, environmental, and social stability of countries and communities around the world; and

  2. by acting as a threat multiplier;
8. Whereas the Federal Government-led mobilizations during World War II and the New Deal created the greatest middle class that the United States has ever seen, but many members of frontline and vulnerable communities were excluded from many of the economic and societal benefits of those mobilizations; and

9. Whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial, and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era is a historic opportunity—
  1. to create millions of good, high-wage jobs in the United States;

  2. to provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States; and

  3. to counteract systemic injustices:
CREATING THE GREEN NEW DEAL
10. it is the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal
  1. to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;
  2. to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;
  3. to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;
  4. to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come—
    1. clean air and water;
    2. climate and community resiliency;
    3. healthy food;
    4. access to nature; and
    5. a sustainable environment; and
  5. to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’);
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