Nearly 150 activists arrested in ‘Green New Deal’ protest

WASHINGTON — The group spearheading the effort for House Democrats to move Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” to the top of their legislative agenda appeared to score a victory on Monday as more than 1,000 demonstrators stormed the Capitol Hill offices of Democratic House leaders to stage sit-ins.

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, emerged from his office to address protesters and promised them that he is “committed to the House Select Committee on a Green New Deal.”

McGovern commended the protesters for taking action to promote environmentally friendly policies and thrust climate change into the national spotlight.

“The reason we’re talking about it is because you’re here,” McGovern said.

U.S. Capitol Police on Monday arrested roughly 143 activists, including 61 outside the office of the likely next speaker, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The mostly high school- and collegeaged protesters demonstrated in or outside nearly 50 congressional offices to urge lawmakers to confront manmade climate change.

The protests were organized by the Sunrise Movement, a group that aims to promote policy action to address climate change and rid political campaign coffers of money from the fossil fuel industry.

One of the group’s primary targets for demonstration Monday was incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. The Maryland Democrat and longtime Pelosi deputy has accepted more than a quarter of a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry. Protesters also confronted the likely next House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, who has accepted $143,000 from energy groups and executives.

“For too long we’ve seen committees get strangleholded by politicians who are bought out by fossil fuel executives,” said Stephen O’Hanlon, a spokesman for the Sunrise Movement.

O’Hanlon said the group is open to having Republicans on the select committee for the Green New Deal so long as their campaigns do not accept donations from the fossil fuel lobby or executives in the industry.

“We need to make sure that people on the select committee stand up for our generation — not their donors,” O’Hanlon said.

In recent weeks, Ocasio-Cortez has prioritized the establishment of a new Select Committee for a Green New Deal with the goal of “meeting 100 percent of national power demand through renewable sources” in the next decade.

Like the original New Deal, the Green New Deal would require large scale investments in infrastructure and jobs, according to Mark Paul, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute.