Markey Win Shows Green New Deal Far From Irrelevant

by storm. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell forced a preliminary vote on it early last year, and back then it garnered precisely zero votes. Since then, the Green New Deal has been basically dormant. So given that, you'd be forgiven for thinking like I did, that this huge legislative package, full of measures that fight climate change and boost the clean energy industry was basically dead. But according today's guest environmental reporter Dean Scott, that's not how things work on

Capitol Hill. Just because the bill doesn't have much or any momentum doesn't mean it can't have an impact on politics, sometimes a profound one, And in fact, we saw this just last night when Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey beat back a primary challenge largely thanks to his foundational support of

the you guessed it, Green New Deal. We spoke to Dean this morning about the future of this environmental legislation, how it might fare if Democrats sweep this November's elections, and about where exactly the Green New Deal came from. So the Green New Deal has its origins in the Sunrise movement, which is a big progressive climate change group

young activists. Basically, it's a movement that's closely aligned with AOC Alexandria Colzu Cortes, and it basically it started with an idea of getting public officials, which largely trans laid into Democrats, to endorse something that what went far enough

to actually address the challenge of climate change. Not an effort from activists to put something on the table that could be watered down or a place where both parties might end up on incremental changes that address climate change in planetary warming around the margins, but something akin to Roosevelt's package of multiple pieces of legislation in the nineteen

thirties to address a depression in the US economy. So it's been around for a couple of years now, and it has been tied repeatedly to primaries, but also races, and even to the point where Republicans have tried to brand it as something that's a little too aggressive and too far left to ever be implemented in the United States, right, I mean, and that was my perception of it, that it kind of sunk like a lead balloon. You know.

It's because I've heard Republicans constantly use this as sort of a cudgel against Democrats, saying like this is insane. They want to, you know, completely reshape our economy and ban fossil fuels altogether. And but I get that we were talking about this yesterday that it actually is not as irrelevant as I was thinking. Can you talk a little bit about that. Sure, within the context of political races, we've seen the Green New Deal be kind of important

in a number of races, particularly in democratic primaries. What's become fascinating is this has gone in just a matter of a couple years from a platform that was derided as too aggressive, too far reaching, trying to make the US carbon neutral, making the US completely reliant on clean energy, wind and solar, in the matter of a decade of providing clean energy jobs for millions, and the thinking was, well,

where is all this money going to come from? And so I think part of what's happened is two things have happened that are really key. One is the problems with the US economy this year in response to the pandemic and the stay at home orders and all that have really raised the question of how are you going to put tens of millions of people back to work who are unemployed. The other part where it's having a big impact is the Green New Deal is going to

be back in twenty twenty one. And by that I mean it has pulled one whole political party, Democrats, to the left on climate change. And so where as maybe a year or two ago, the thought was if Democrats had the levers of power, if the Democrats hold the House and Senate and Joe Biden wins the White House, then both parties will try to come together, or at least Democrats will try to pick off enough Republicans and move something that can get done, which by its nature

would be kind of moderate on climate change. But I think what's going to happen is Democrats themselves are going to have a hard time supporting something that's that incremental, because the Green New Deal has been effective at pulling that party to the left, and those activists aren't going to be happy with something that just doesn't really address the fundamental causes of climate change. That was something we were talking about that yesterday and it really surprised me.

But it makes a lot of sense that, you know, the Green New Deal is almost like a starting position in a negotiation, and it's so it was so radical that it sounds like Democrats if and when they maybe get control of the government next year, possibly depending on what happens with the elections, they can't really go that far back from their initial starting position. Is that essentially

what's going on. Yeah, And as an example of this, roughly one hundred House Democrats endorse the Green New Deal, and in the last i would say year or so, they picked up the support of just over six Democratic chairmen of different committees. Now, few people expect the House to flip Republican that seems relatively solid that it would be still in the hands of Democrats. The difference is you have all those people, even in leadership positions in a sense in the House endorsing the Green New Deal.

But the difference would be in January is if they control the Senate and Joe Biden is in the White House, then the thing that they endorse is now something that they'll have to wrestle with. And to me, that suggests it doesn't suggest that the Green New Deal is going to become law certainly anytime soon, but it is going to mean the conversation is going to be pulled from both polar opposites in a sense, one side all the

enthusiasm for doing something dramatic. The other side on the far right of the Republican Party, the side of the party that contends that climate change is either not the existential challenge that a lot of scientists say it is, or feel that it's too costly to go down this road, particularly if we were in a recession. We're going to have two ends of a barbell, essentially, and we could have some teetering back and forth of what solutions or

realistic solutions look like. We're going to take a quick break right now, but when we come back, we'll get into how Ed Markey used the Green New Deal to save his seat in Congress, and my other threatened Democrats may not be able to replicate a strategy stay with us. So before we get into sort of how this is playing out at the ballot box, let's talk about what's actually in the package. You know, this is a legislative package.

It exists on paper. Can you give me like two or three different you know, provisions that are in the Green New Deal that would maybe have the biggest impact, Sure, the biggest. You know that the top line message of the Green New Deal is to get the US at the forefront of cutting off its reliance on fossil fuels and to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but also to guarantee some jobs in the clean energy industries. In other words, that's the New Deal reference to Roosevelt's era, which is

to put people back to work. And that second part about employing people doesn't get talked about as much with the Green New Deal, but it makes a really strong argument that we need a lot of the kinds of jobs in the clean energy sector. So something I just thought of is that, you know, the Green New Deal

would not be great for the fossil fuel industry. You know, it seems like this would be the government really you know, for lack of a better word, putting its finger on the scales in terms of favoring the clean energy industry. As we know, as we've discussed in this podcast numerous times, the fossil fuel prices are at record lows. Oil companies are going bankrupt left and right. Does the fossil fuel industry have the clout or the strength to fight something

like this. It's interesting the you're seeing in the last couple of years. For example, big big oil companies Exon some of the others have moved in many cases lower and lower or even off some of the top stock indexes by which we sort of measure who are the big movers and shakers in the US economy. Oh yeah, there was a time pre iPhone, before the ascendancy of Apple, when Xon was the most valuable company in the world.

That was not even twenty years ago. That's right. And keeping in mind that too many times when people think about this question of whether whether fossil fuels are somehow losing clout, they focus maybe too often on big oil,

the big oil and gas companies. But in many states in the US, particularly in Oklahoma, Texas, these are the companies that are doing the drilling and in some cases even the refining our small companies, and that makes an argument to their elected officials that these are jobs that are out there that would have to be replaced somehow

and an important industry to many of those states. So that makes it challenging to do anything that sort of sidelines of the fossil fuel industries because in states like West Virginia, Wyoming, Texas, Oklahoma, the energy sector, the fossil fuel sector, is going to continue to have clout with those elected representatives, and you start picking off those states one by one. Pretty soon you have a decent number of folks on the side of the argument say we

can't go too far. We have a lot of jobs to contend, and they're going to dig their heels in when it comes to doing anything that makes it even more difficult for fossil fuels to compete. Finally, let's talk about the politics of all of this, and one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk to you today Senator ed Marky from Massachusetts. He had a primary challenge in Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert Kennedy. Earlier this summer he was pretty far down in the polls,

and he reversed that pretty dramatically. And one of the reasons why is because he received the endorsement from AOC and Alexandero Cosio courtes of course, and sort of rebranded himself as an eco warrior and cited his support of the Green New Deal as a part of his environmental credentials. And as we found out last night, he was victorious. He'll get to keep, probably keep his Senate seat thanks

to all of that. Dean, I have to imagine that, you know, other Democrats, especially veteran Democrats, are seeing that and are saying that worked for him, maybe they'll work for me. Is that the case? Yeah? And I think one thing that's important to remember is, of course Ed Markey is is heavily favored to win against his Republican

opponent Kevin O'Connor in the general. Right, So we're not talking about a race, let's say, in a state like Virginia that's a little more purple to blue, where it could hurt a candidate like Ed Markey to move or or to accentuate his his his progressive accomplishments and views. Right this, Yeah, this is a state. This is a state where the primary is it that's the race that's right. So basically, if Marky defeated Kennedy as he did last night, then he pretty much has assumed to win. So that's

that's a little bit different than other states. But I will say this Marky, it's it's not talked about as much as it should be. Is that Ed Markey had a He basically had a playbook on climate change and a record on it. Has been going after fossil fuels, talking about what big oil is or isn't doing to help America in terms of keeping prices down for consumers when gas was back at four dollars plus a gallon back in the two thousand and seven twenty ten era.

So he's been on this issue for a long time. That's why his record on climate change, which dates back to him really was basically the co author of the Captain Trade bill in the House. He had that kind of critical experience or record which was made it possible for Alexandria Cosio Cortez to work with him in the first place in co authoring the Green New Deal. So when they know they work on a sort of big,

big rollout of the Green New Deal. Once AOC won two years ago, he was a natural person to go to in the Senate when she needed someone in the Senate by her side. So there was a natural sort of fit there. The fascinating part for Markie is that he was able to use that AOC support Okazio Coortez brought along with her the folks from the Sunrise Movement, the young people who want dramatic changes on the climate front.

Was able to really point to them and say, look, the young people and the young people who want actual climate change, they support me, not Joseph P. Kennedy. That's what made it really possible, I think in the end for him to reject what could have been a really

strong effort by Kennedy. But it certainly was a race that really showed us sort of in a in a in it was almost like a classroom exercise of how the Green New Deal can be used, at least for now by folks running for office from the Democratic side to to push their selves on the way to victory. That's it for today's episode of Parts per Billion. If you want more environmental news, check out our website Newstop Bloomberg Environment dot com. That website, once again is Newstop

Bloomberg Environment dot Com. Today's episode of Parts per Billion was produced by myself and Josh Block. Parts Pavilion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. Music for today's episode is a message by Jazar and thug by Brian Lawrence Bennett. If you used under a Creative Commons license. Thanks for listening. Those nine justices in Washington that can be pretty hard to keep track up. That's where we

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