Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Blasts Republicans for Balking at the Green New Deal

From ELLE

In a move that fooled absolutely no one, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held a procedural vote on the Green New Deal on Tuesday in order to essentially get Democrats on the record about whether they agree with the proposal.

During the vote, most Senate Democrats voted "present," doing so "as a means of calling out Republicans, who had set up this vote to highlight potential splits in the Democratic caucus," according to Vox.

The Green New Deal is a resolution that aims to get the nation's greenhouse gas emissions down to net-zero, while also investing in clean energy jobs and renewable energy. However, it has not yet had a hearing or been put through committee, further proving that McConnell held this vote purely to put Democrats on the spot.

Afterwards, congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal, tweeted that she had encouraged Democrats to vote "present," and that she wants to know why the Senate Republicans are refusing to hold any major hearings on climate change.

Then, while in the Committee on Financial Services on Tuesday, Ocasio-Cortez delivered scathing remarks about the government's current approach to, and rhetoric around, climate change.

She said, "We talk about the concern of the environment as an elitist concern. One year ago, I was waitressing in a taco shop in downtown Manhattan. I just got health insurance for the first time a month ago. This is not an elitist issue. This is a quality of life issue. You want to tell people that their concern and their desire for clean air and clean water is elitist? Tell that to the kids in the South Bronx, who are suffering from the highest rates of childhood asthma in the country. Tell that to the families in Flint, whose kids have their blood...ascending in lead levels, their brains are damaged for the rest of their lives...This is about our lives. This is about American lives. And it should not be partisan. Science should not be partisan."

Ocasio-Cortez also spoke about the current floods in parts of the midwest, including Iowa and Nebraska, which have caused thousands of people to leave their homes.

She continued, "We talk about cost. We’re going to pay for this whether we pass a Green New Deal or not. Because as towns and cities go underwater, as wildfires ravage our communities, we are going to pay. And we're either going to decide whether we’re going to pay to react or pay to be proactive...I wish it didn't have to cost so much. But I'm going to turn 30 this year, and for the entire 30 years of my lifetime, we did not make substantial investments to prepare our entire country for what we knew was coming. So now it's coming all up at the end."

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