Green New Deal staredown looms

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a vote on a Green New Deal on the Senate calendar Thursday in a move that seemed designed to pit Democratic leaders who haven’t supported it against progressives who do.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) answered him just a little while later by calling the move a “political stunt,” and offering a challenge.

“Bring it on,” Schumer said. “You think it might embarrass Democrats to vote on a nonbinding resolution that some of us may support but not others. Trust me. We’ll be fine.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rocketed the Green New Deal proposal into the public consciousness when — to the glee of Republicans hoping for Democratic divisions — she showed up a Sunrise Movement youth protest at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office late last year.

She rolled out a resolution last week that would include massive climate technology investments and jobs guarantees, with the goal of cutting U.S. fossil fuel reliance to zero.

While Schumer did not embrace the specific proposal, he did note that taking steps against climate change is seen as vitally important by most of the public. And whether or not Democrats back the specific resolution — which McConnell (RKy.) opposes — they believe the public will see Democrats offer climate solutions while the GOP offers nothing. “We actually believe the consensus of the worldwide scientific community that climate change is an existential threat to this planet, one that threatens not only our children and our grandchildren, but all of us right now,” Schumer said. “We actually believe that we need to do something about climate change. Do Republicans believe that?”

While the senior New York senator accused McConnell of staging a political stunt, a spokesman for McConnell predicted that for all of Schumer’s challenging words, the Brooklyn pol will land on McConnell’s side.

“Sen. Schumer does not support the Green New Deal, but we will nonetheless have a vote on it,” the spokesman said.

Beyond daring McConnell to “bring it on,” Schumer also issued a specific challenge to the Republican from coal-rich Kentucky.

“His cynical stunt demands a response,” Schumer said. “I challenge Leader McConnell to say that our climate change crisis is real, that it is caused by humans, and that Congress needs to act.”

Schumer predicted McConnell will never do that.