The Political Insider

Peter Hasson on July 11, 2019

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal” is more about drastically overhauling the American economy than it is about combatting climate change, her top aide admitted.

Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, made the revealing admission in a meeting with Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s climate director in May. A Washington Post reporter accompanied Chakrabarti to the meeting for a magazine profile published Wednesday.

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti said to Inslee’s climate director, Sam Ricketts.

“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” Chakrabarti added.

Ocasio-Cortez’s press office didn’t immediately return an inquiry regarding whether Chakrabarti’s admission would undermine the congresswoman’s Green New Deal advocacy.

The Green New Deal calls for a number of hard left proposals, including getting the U.S. entirely off of fossil fuels within 10 years, providing universal health care, basic income programs and job guarantees.

The proposal also calls for “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative and public ownership.”

Transitioning to “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources” within 10 years — just one of the Green New Deal’s expensive proposals — could cost more than $5 trillion, according to one estimate.

The Green New Deal in its entirety could cost up to $93 trillion over a decade, according to another estimate.