A new study claims that progressives' Green New Deal (GND) would impose around $75,000 in average annual costs for households in key battleground states -- raising questions as to how climate politics will impact voter sentiment going into the 2020 elections.
The report, released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Power the Future on Wednesday, builds upon a previous study from the organization last summer. Using updated data, the group found that within the first year of implementation, the GND would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in 10 states -- Colorado ($74,287), Florida ($76,109), Iowa ($76,683), Michigan ($74,470), New Hampshire ($74,723), New Mexico ($74,432), North Carolina ($74,609), Ohio ($75,807), Pennsylvania ($75,307), and Wisconsin ($75,252).
Those figures incorporate the cost of electricity production within the first year of the program, a one-time upgrade to vehicles and housing, as well as shipping and logistics costs incurred from GND mandates.
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The report also identifies collective costs per state based on all of those factors, omitting electricity production.
In total, these states would face $2.7 trillion in aggregate costs to households. Households just in the key battleground state of Florida would face $700 billion in collective costs to fulfill the GND's goal of transitioning towards electric vehicles, retrofit residential buildings, and complying with changes to shipping and logistics. Released on Wednesday, the study found that households in other major states -- like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania -- would incur roughly $200-$400 billion in initial costs.
Because the GND is so sweeping in its goals, it was difficult for CEI to fully account for the true costs of implementation. And it's unclear how Democratic spending would help mitigate the costs incurred by households.
Yet, the free market think tank calculated base estimates showing a hefty price for GND mandates energy-related provisions of the progressive proposal. The other aspects of the proposal, it said, "dwarf the energy-related costs by an order of magnitude."
For Elizabeth Warren however, the Green New Deal doesn't go far enough. Here's more, from Townhall.com:
The Green New Deal promised a “massive transformation of our society,” with goals that include eliminating air travel, cars, fossil fuels, and nuclear energy, as well as retrofitting every building in America to be energy efficient. While most sane people understood the plan was a fantasy, albeit a dangerous one, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Thursday she doesn’t believe the $93 trillion proposal goes far enough.
“What I want to see us do is get off an oil economy, and not only for ourselves, but for the rest of the world,” Warren said during a CNN town hall event.
“I want to see us move entirely to green, and let me say on this, I not only support a Green New Deal, I don’t think it goes far enough,” she added. “I also have a blue new deal cause we have got to be thinking about our oceans as well that we need to protect.”