Pirate's Cove

I’m not sure why Pelosi would need to head off the Green New Deal, since virtually no House Democrat, especially co-author (Senator Ed Markey is the other) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is calling for a vote. Even most of the Democrats special interest groups who support it are not Demanding a vote. It’s like the old joke, Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it

Pelosi Invokes Obama to Head Off Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to head off her party’s restive progressive caucus by invoking the legacy of President Barack Obama to build support for a climate change bill that falls well short of the ambitions of the Green New Deal championed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Pelosi is planning a vote by the House this week on a bill that would prohibit President Donald Trump’s administration from going through with plans to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

Liberal Democrats are leaving little doubt that the legislation won’t be enough.

“The idea that we can just reintroduce 2009 policies is not reflective of action that is necessary for now in the world of today,” said Ocasio-Cortez. The New York lawmaker said “there is no harm in passing” the Paris bill, but she still backs the bolder action called for in her Green New Deal, which conservatives have derided as a socialist manifesto.

I wish I had saved the article, or at least could find it again, where several Constitutional authorities, people who teach this in law schools (one was from Harvard, if memory serves), noted that if the House passes something along those lines it would require that the Senate vote on the Paris Climate agreement, since it would then be considered an official treaty. Then, since the Senate is controlled by Republicans, it would be shot down, killed off officially, and would further tarnish Obama’s legacy. One of the people noting this was an Obama and Hillary supporter.

Even if the Senate bothered to take up the House bill as regular legislation to put Democrats on the record, it would still die. Heck, if it managed to make it through the Senate, Trump would veto it, and Dems do not have the votes to over-ride.

The House is expected to begin debate on the climate legislation, H.R. 9, Wednesday and could take a vote by the end of the week.

There is a legislative argument for House Democrats to start with these bills since Trump has been testing the constitutional limits of what he can do to reverse his predecessor’s signature achievements. He has taken executive action to reverse Obama administration policies and chip away at regulations.

Let’s go back a bit in time: Obama had them craft the Paris agreement in order to specifically avoid it being considered a treaty to avoid the GOP controlled Senate, but, this means that Paris has zero force of actual U.S. law. It was Obama’s word, nor is Paris even binding. Trump could have simply scuttled the whole thing with the wave of a pen (and he should have). Instead, he decided to follow the rules of the agreement and gave notice of the U.S. (shouldn’t it be Obama?) pulling out.

Focusing on the Paris accord allows Democrats to paint Republicans as opposing solutions to global warming and highlight what they say is a lack of leadership on the issue by Trump, who has dismissed climate change as a hoax.

So this is simply basic politics. They should be careful with this approach. Certainly, focusing on the Green New Deal allows Republicans to bludgeon Dems with the Socialism, big government, massive taxation, and loss of personal freedom aspects, among others. Bringing up Paris allows the unhinged part of their base which is focused on Hotcoldwetdry to blast them for being weak. Which allows Republicans to highlight just how insane the Cult of Climastrology is. It was just a few years ago that they though Paris was “historic”. Now they say it is not enough.