It turns out the Green New Deal is even too extreme for even the solar and wind industry — especially its elements that extend far beyond energy and climate policy, according to Reuters.
Just don’t expect other media to jump on the story. Liberal media have primarily fallen into two camps on the Green New Deal: failing to inform their audiences about absurd elements or massive cost or lavishing praise on it. ABC, CBS and NBC evening news shows flat-out ignored the Green New Deal for a week or more. While The New York Times called it “ambition on a vast scale” and gave it front-page coverage.
On its face, it would seem that solar and wind companies would relish a resolution to require the country use 100 percent renewable energy within a decade. However, Reuters found companies both uncomfortable with promoting the idea as introduced and reticent to endorse the proposal.
Although one solar industry spokesman loved the “enthusiasm” it brought to the issue of climate, companies and associations also expressed concerns that it was unrealistic, “creates controversy” (by going beyond energy issues), and is “politically divisive,” Reuters reported.
American Council on Renewable Energy president Greg Wetstone told the wire service, “It creates controversy and complexity tying this to issues that are not in our sphere.”
The Green New Deal announcement by Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Feb. 7, included documents calling for federal guarantees and giveaways for income, jobs, training, healthcare and education. “Today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez declared in public remarks that day.
Some of the hesitancy was political now that solar and wind companies are operating in red and blue states, instead of just liberal enclaves.
“If you just broadly endorse the Green New Deal, you are liable to upset one side of the aisle or the other. And that’s not constructive,” said Tom Werner, the CEO of SunPower Corp, one of the nation’s biggest solar power companies.
“The idea that you could go 100 percent (clean energy) in 10 years would require a lot of things happening perfectly, simultaneously,” Werner added. “You’d have to have bipartisan support, 52-state [sic] support.”
