Politics

Joe Biden unveils his $2T AOC-fueled Green New Deal energy agenda

Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden unveiled a $2 trillion energy plan Tuesday with a heavy focus on the Green New Deal agenda being pushed by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the far-left flank of his party.

Speaking in Wilmington, Del., Biden promised a “clean energy revolution,” which he said would deliver millions of jobs, as he attacked President Trump for calling climate change a “hoax.”

Biden detailed what he called a pro-union platform that would replace the US government’s car fleet with American-made electric vehicles and includes a pledge to create a “carbon pollution-free electric sector by the year 2025.”

“There is no more consequential challenge that we must meet in the next decade than the onrushing climate crisis. Left unchecked, it is literally an existential threat to the health of our planet and to our very survival,” said Biden, 77.

Biden’s announcement comes as the presidential wannabe courts idols on the left of his party including Bronx-Queens Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the hope that they will support him and steer young voters his way in November.

In May, AOC announced she had been selected to co-chair Biden’s climate change panel along with former Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Joe Biden
Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

The former veep on Tuesday promised to “create millions of high-paying union jobs by building a modern infrastructure and a clean energy future” and described his vision of a US covered in 500,000 electric car charging stations and thriving factories producing green products.

“When Donald Trump thinks about renewable energy, he sees windmills somehow causing cancer. When I think about these windmills, I see American manufacturing, American workers rising to dominate the global markets,” Biden said.

“I see steel that will be needed for those windmill platforms, towers and ladders which could be made in small manufacturers,” he said. “I see the union-certified men and women who will manufacture and install.”

“I see the ports that will come back to life and the longshoremen and the shipbuilders and the communities they support,” he continued.

The Green New Deal introduced by AOC — which even Democrats trashed — unanimously failed in a Senate vote last year.

In a statement to Reuters after news broke that AOC was joining Biden’s climate change panel, a spokesperson for the Democratic socialist said the congresswoman believed in applying pressure “both inside and outside the system.”

Unveiling the ambitious energy plan, Biden promised to revamp American manufacturing by giving millions of buildings “energy makeovers” and said the nation, ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, had a chance to start again.

“We are an economy in crisis but with an incredible opportunity: To not just rebuild back to where we were before, but better, stronger, more resilient and more prepared to the challenges that lie ahead.”

“These aren’t pie-in-the-sky dreams. These are actionable policies that we can get to work on right away,” he said.

Biden singled out a 2013 tweet in which the president described global warming as an “expensive hoax.” However, at a White House event in January, Trump said he had since changed his mind.

“Nothing’s a hoax. Nothing’s a hoax about that. It’s a very serious subject,” he said. “I want clean air. I want clean water. I want the cleanest air, want the cleanest water. The environment is very important to me.”