Climate Change activists may be cheering the Green New Deal unveiled on Thursday, but organizations that represent the millions of men and women who work in the domestic energy sector are not mincing words, saying it not only promotes “false promises,” but it is “immoral” to put in place policies that hurt the American people.
“For nearly a decade now the United States, long blessed with vast natural resources, has benefited from the greatest energy expansion in the history of the world,” Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, said in a statement. “Our energy producers have delivered the low cost, affordable and reliable energy that has fueled economic growth and opportunity for all Americans, no matter their race, sex, creed, or color.”
“We have drilled our way to prosperity here at home and, as this energy revolution continues, the U.S. will lift millions of people out of energy poverty around the globe while reducing the power of those who fuel their hostile regimes with petrodollars,” Pyle said.
“During this same time period the green left — through the apparatus of the Democratic Party — has done everything in their power to stop it,” Pyle said. “They have failed.”
“The resolution is nothing more than an organizational device to advance the political agenda of the socialist wing of the Democratic party wrapped in a green bow,” Pyle said. “There is nothing aspirational about making false promises to the very people it claims to be trying to help,” Pyle said. “In fact, it is immoral.”
“Extreme,” Tim Huelskamp, president of the free-market think tank the Heartland Institute, said in a statement. “That’s the only way to describe the socialist Green New Deal.”
“The plan would shut down virtually all coal, oil, and natural gas electric plants, eliminating millions of jobs in the process; spend unspecified billions on new ‘zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing’ and green public transit projects, and it would eliminate as many gasoline-powered vehicles ‘as is technologically feasible,’” a press release sent by the Heartland Institute said.
“With [socialism’s] failure in Venezuela, Ocasio-Cortez, Markey and their fellow Democrats have picked a bad time to force socialism here in our country,” Huelskamp said. “Rest assured; the Heartland Institute will continue to lead the opposition to this socialist green dream.”
The American Petroleum Institute (API), a national trade association for the natural gas and oil industry, which supports 10.3 million U.S. jobs and nearly eight percent of the U.S. economy, also issued a statement following the release of the climate change resolution, which, if it became law, would eradicate fossil fuels.
“The U.S. natural gas and oil industry is meeting the climate challenge head-on, investing billions in cleaner fuels, zero to low carbon technologies, and a smaller environmental footprint for operations to safely deliver energy from coast to coast,” the API statement said.
“Greater use of clean and affordable U.S. natural gas has driven America’s CO2 emissions to their lowest level in a generation, and EIA projects that the U.S. emissions reduction trend and strong U.S. demand for natural gas and oil will continue for decades to come,” the API statement said. “
“Congress’ goal must be to balance meeting record consumer energy demand reliably and affordably for every American family while enabling environmental progress and API will evaluate and support proposals that strike this necessary balance,” the API statement said.
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