Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) expressed skepticism about progressive Democrats’ Green New Deal proposal Thursday, saying the goal of replacing necessary air travel with high-speed rail transport would be burdensome on her home state of Hawaii.
“That would be pretty hard for Hawaii,” Hirono said of the far-left environmental proposal unveiled Thursday by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), according to Fox News’ Chad Pergram. Hawaii is roughly 2,500 miles away from Los Angeles, California, with a flight time of four and a half hours.
As NTK Network notes: “To put that in perspective, the longest railroad trip offered by Amtrak, which is not high-speed rail, is 2,265 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles and takes on average 43 hours to complete.”
Earlier Thursday, progressive lawmakers published an outline of the proposal which they claim is designed to solve “climate change” and “systemic injustice” by reducing “pollution and greenhouse gas emissions” to meet “100 percent of the power demand” through “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.”
The plan outlines 14 proposed “infrastructure and industrial” projects to meet the objective of “totally overhaul” the country’s transportation system.
“Every project strives to remove greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from every sector of our economy” by “massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary,” the outline states.
Further, the outline calls for government solutions for creating “affordable public transit available to all, with [the] goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.”
The proposal’s release came as Pelosi announced her list of Democrat members named to the select committee on climate change, which — most notably — did not include Ocasio-Cortez.
Despite the plan being short on details — and without a price tag — several leading Democrat presidential contenders, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have come out in support of it. “I’m excited to join @AOC and @EdMarkey to introduce the #GreenNewDeal. Climate change is real, it threatens all of us, & we have no time to waste to address it head-on,” Warren wrote on social media.