John McCormack writes at National Review Online about Democrats’ mystifying approach to a Senate vote on the proposed Green New Deal.
On Tuesday, all Senate Republicans and four Senate Democrats voted against the Green New Deal, a resolution sponsored by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) and Senator Ed Markey (D., Mass.). Among the measure’s extreme agenda items is a pledge to generate all power in the United States from “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” in a decade.
Forty-three Democratic senators voted “present,” denouncing the vote as a “stunt” or a “sham.” …
… But Democratic claims that the vote was unfair didn’t seem to add up. Had Republicans altered the resolution introduced by Markey and Ocasio-Cortez? No. “It’s the same resolution,” Ocasio-Cortez told National Review. “People are forgetting that this is not a bill,” she added. “The Green New Deal is not even a bill. It’s a resolution, which means it gets introduced in both the House and the Senate and even if it gets passed in both chambers, it doesn’t go to the president. They are visionary documents, they are goal-setting documents.” …
… But if the measure is simply a resolution laying out goals, why can’t all members of the Senate say whether or not they support the goals now, as Markey, Ocasio-Cortez, and the Senate Democrats running for president had done when the Green New Deal was first introduced? “We haven’t had any witnesses or expertise or science,” Markey replied. “It’s a perversion of the political process to not have hearings on legislation before you bring it out. I want hearings.” …
… But if further study is required before senators should be expected to take a stand on whether the goal makes sense, then the decision by Markey and Ocasio-Cortez to establish those goals in February doesn’t make sense.