In the two weeks since its introduction, the Green New Deal has made tsunami-level waves in political and agricultural circles. Commentary on its contents might as well be a new renewable resource at the rate it’s being generated.
On Feb. 7, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY-14) introduced H. Res. 109—widely called the Green New Deal—to the House. It was introduced and cosponsored by 67 other House Democrats and immediately referred to 11 different House committees. The Senate companion bill—S. Res. 59, sponsored by Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) and cosponsored by 11 other Democrat and Independent senators—was also introduced on Feb. 7 but had not been referred to any committee by press time.
Despite the voluminous nature of the reaction it has received, the Green New Deal is an unusually small bill at just 14 pages. It is also what is known as a simple resolution. Such pieces of legislation are nonbinding and have no force of law. They are generally used to express positions on internal affairs in Congress and set the tone for future activities.
The Library of Congress has summarized the Green New Deal as seeking to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and improvements to the nation’s infrastructure, economy, employment, and social situation through a 10-year program of projects aimed at addressing and preparing for the effects of climate change.
The bill is broken into four main parts; the preamble which argues why the bill is needed, its overarching goals, the mobilization areas, and the requirements for success. These sections are summarized below, with special attention to areas of likely interest to ranchers, landowners, and those who use public lands.
Green reasons
Why is the Green New Deal needed? According to its preamble, the answer is climate change and its costly impacts on American communities, ecology, and the economy, specifically as outlined in a recent report by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
These costly impacts include “an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure.”
The bill additionally calculates the monetary impact of climate change as being $500 billion in lost economic output, and projects severe increases in the scope of wildfires.
“Global warming at or above 2 degrees Celsius beyond preindustrial levels will cause … 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.”
The preamble additionally asserts that the impacts of climate change have, and will continue to have, a greater negative impact on what it calls “frontline and vulnerable communities.” This group includes demographics often called “underserved,” but it also includes “depopulated rural communities.”
The preamble also goes on to say that such vulnerable communities are harder hit by the “systematic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices” exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
Green New Deal goals
The bill states five general and undefined goals as “the duty of the federal government.” These goals are, in summary:
• Transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in a fair and just way;
• Create millions of “good, high-wage jobs” that will ensure economic security;
• Invest in U.S. infrastructure with attention to efficiency and sustainability;
• Ensure clean air and water, climate resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment; and
• Promote social and economic justice for all people, but with special attention to frontline and vulnerable communities.
Mobilization areas
The bill asserts its five goals “should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization.” This “Green New Deal mobilization” involves 14 different goals or project areas. These don’t include many—or in some cases, any—definitions of their relevant concepts such as “sustainable” or “sound science.”
The mobilization efforts that are likely most relevant to ranchers, landowners, and public land users include:
• Building “resiliency” to weather disasters related to climate change through “community-defined projects and strategies;”
• Repairing and upgrading existing infrastructure, which includes “guaranteeing universal access to clean water;”
• Sourcing 100 percent of the country’s energy from “clean, renewable, and zero-emissions sources;” and
• Removing existing pollutants from the atmosphere “by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase carbon storage such as land preservation and afforestation.” (Editor’s note: “Afforestation” is planting trees to create a forest where there wasn’t a forest before. This is different from “reforestation,” which means to repopulate an existing forest that has declining tree populations or where the existing forest has been removed or curtailed.)
There is also a mobilization area that directly addresses agriculture. Section 2.G states that achieving the goals of the Green New Deal must involve “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as technologically feasible.” This specifically includes supporting family farming, investing in “sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health,” and ensuring “universal access to healthy food.”
Requirements
Sections 3 and 4 of the Green New Deal outline what is required to achieve its goals, though the sections are functionally another list of goals and projects. Those likely of greatest interest to ranchers, landowners, and public lands users—summarized or directly quoted, as appropriate—include:
• The Green New Deal must be developed transparently and by partnering with “frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia, and businesses;”
• Public funding of research and development of “new clean and renewable energy technologies;”
• Implementation of New Green Deal mobilization efforts are done democratically on the local level, involving and led by frontline and vulnerable communities;
• Enacting and enforcing trade rules in an effort to ensure strong labor and environmental standards and keep jobs and manufacturing in the U.S.;
• “Ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected and that eminent domain is not abused;”
• Seeking consent from tribes “for all decisions that affect indigenous people and their traditional territories;” and
• “Ensuring a commercial environment where every business person is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies.” — Kerry Halladay, WLJ editor
