by Chris White
Americans in nearly a dozen swing states could expect to spend roughly $75,000 per year if the Green New Deal is ever implemented, according to a report Wednesday from a conservative nonprofit group.
The Green New Deal would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in Colorado, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among others, a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute noted. CEI worked with Power the Future and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on the report.
“Right now, our booming national economy and record low unemployment rate is driven by abundant, domestic, reliable, and inexpensive energy produced by millions of men and women across the country,” Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, said in a statement.
He added: “Any policy that proposes to reverse this success is a threat to jobs, to rural communities, to national security, and to the very prosperity that Americans are experiencing.”
Power the Future is a 501(c)4 group that was founded to promote and defend people who work in the energy industry.
CEI president Kent Lassman made a similar argument.
“Our analysis shows that, if implemented, the Green New Deal would cost for American households at least tens of thousands of dollars annually on a permanent basis,” Lassman said.
“Perhaps that’s why exactly zero Senate Democrats, including the resolution’s 12 co-sponsors, voted for the Green New Deal when they had the chance,” he concluded.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank’s report builds on a study the group produced in July 2019 showing Americans would incur massive expenses if the Green New Deal passes.
The authors incorporated the costs of electricity production within the first year after Green New Deal’s implementation and the costs of a one-time upgrade to buildings and vehicles. They also determined how the plan’s mandate would increase the cost of logistics in a modern American economy.
CEI said the costs could be much higher due to the vague, overarching nature of the Green New Deal, not to mention other variables that could pop up in an economy run exclusively on green energy.
Other reports have made similar findings. The Green New Deal could cost up to $93 trillion over 10 years, a report from right-leaning group American Action Forum (AAF) noted in 2019.
All told, that amounts to $36,100 to $65,300 per American household per year to meet the lofty proposal’s goals, AAF reported in February 2019. The plan initially intended on producing widespread high-speed rail, guaranteed jobs, universal health care and refurbishing every building in the country.
Republicans in the Senate torpedoed the Ocasio-Cortez’s legislation in March 2019 as Democrats called the vote a dog-and-pony show. The GOP defeated the proposal 57-0; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the bill a socialistic ploy designed to kill the economy.
Still, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are still on board with the idea.
Sanders revealed his own Green New Deal in August 2019, promising everything from “virtually free” electricity and a “hunger-free” transition to green energy from fossil fuels. The democratic socialist’s nearly 14,000-page memo also lays out how he will deal with a variety of social justice issues.
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Chris White is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
