The “Unity Task Force” convened by presumptive Democrat nominee Joe Biden and former campaign rival Bernie Sanders has produced their recommendations on how the United States should tackle the so-called “climate emergency.” And it’s every bit as extreme as you would expect when you consider that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was one of the chairs of the committee.
First announced in the wake of Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Joe Biden in April, the task force addressed climate and “environmental justice,” criminal-justice reform, the economy, education, universal healthcare, and immigration.
The climate task force was chaired by Ocasio-Cortez and former Secretary of State John Kerry. The first sentence of their preamble made the scientifically dubious claim that “Climate change is a global emergency.” The task force claimed that President Trump “still callously and willfully denies the science that explains why so many are suffering.”
While blaming failed dams, record storms, and “thousands” of dead Americans on climate change, the report is remarkably short on evidence for those claims. In fact, it offers none — just the same laundry list of alleged “problems” and plans for gigantic government intervention to “solve” them.
“We will take immediate action to reverse the Trump Administration’s dangerous and destructive rollbacks of critical climate and environmental protections. We will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement and, on Day One, seek higher ambition from nations around the world, putting the United States back in the position of global leadership where we belong,” the report stated.
The task force calls for the immediate switch to what they refer to as a “clean energy economy,” which would, among other things, eliminate “carbon pollution” from power plants by 2035 and dramatically expand wind and solar energy throughout the United States. The plan calls for the installation of 500 million solar panels and 60,000 new wind turbines in the country within five years.
One wonders if the report’s authors considered the environmental impact of those half a billion solar panels and the countless birds that will be killed by those 60,000 wind turbines.
With all of that manufacturing and installation, new jobs will be created and those new workers will need representation. In a wink and nod to Democrat-supporting labor unions, the report states: “All jobs in the clean energy economy should provide an opportunity to join a union. Democrats will restore and protect workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively.”
And, just in case you had any doubt, taxes will definitely go up to pay for the Democrats’ dream. “Democrats believe that any clean energy infrastructure project financed with federal support, including through the tax code, should come with robust labor and wage requirements.
And as Ocasio-Cortez has stated before, the climate plan that she is pushing addresses much more than the scientific aspects of climate change. In December of 2018, while promoting her “Green New Deal” plan to completely overhaul the economy to fight the mythical scourge of anthropogenic climate change, AOC remarked: “[We] can use the transition to 100 percent renewable energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America.”
And the task force’s climate plan addresses those social aspects of climate change as well. “The clean energy economy must represent the diversity of America. We will invest in the education and training of underrepresented groups, including people of color, low-income Americans, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and unemployed energy workers for jobs in clean energy-related industries.”
Biden thanked the task force for their recommendations in a tweet: “I commend the task forces for their service and for helping to build a bold, transformative platform for our party and for our country. And I am deeply grateful to Bernie Sanders for working with us to unite our party and deliver real, lasting change for generations to come.”
The task force’s climate plan, dubbed “Combating the Climate Crisis and Pursuing Environmental Justice,” is nothing more than a reheated and slightly expanded version of Ocasio-Cortez’s budget-busting Green New Deal. It contains all of the hyperbolic language of the original spiced up with a few more specifics. The plan is a regulation-happy, liberty-killing document, which would mean the end of the United States as we know it — which, of course, is what the far left is hoping for.
One has to wonder if Biden is even in charge of his campaign anymore. If he is, then this climate plan and all of the other recommendations of the “Unity Task Force” represents his complete capitulation to the extremist far-left voices that are now in control of the Democrat Party.
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James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects. He can be reached at [email protected].
