At the CNN climate debate on Wednesday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said she was so desperate to pass a Green New Deal, she would slash the filibuster in the U.S. Senate. She also pledged to sue oil companies.
“I am prepared to get rid of a filibuster to pass a Green New Deal,” Harris declared.
At roughly the same time, she tweeted, “If Republicans continue to block progress, I’ll get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal.”
If Republicans continue to block progress, I’ll get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal. #ClimateTownHall
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 4, 2019
The filibuster allows any member of the U.S. Senate to lengthen debate and prevent a measure from coming up for a vote.
As for the Green New Deal, Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff to Green New Deal architect Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), let slip that it “wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” but rather a “how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy-thing.” Taxing the rich at 100 percent would not come close to funding the project, which would cost $49.109 trillion on the low end. One study found that the Green New Deal would cost the average American family $250,000 — a quarter of a million dollars — in the first five years.
Yet Kamala Harris’s green power grab would not be limited to pushing the Green New Deal. She also pledged to ban hydraulic fracturing (better known as “fracking”), offshore oil drilling, and plastic straws.
She also promised to sue oil companies like Exxon-Mobil.
“It’s not a question of debating the science. It’s a question of taking on powerful interests and understanding polluters have a profit motive to pollute. Let’s take them to court and require if they don’t change, they pay fines,” she said.
It remains unclear just how Americans would get any electricity in Kamala’s America. Not only would the Green New Deal tax and regulate the energy economy back to the Stone Age, but all these new bans would make it even harder for poor Americans — and the poor would be hit hardest in this — to access electric light, air conditioning, refrigeration, microwaves, and everything that electricity makes possible.
It should be no surprise that Kamala Harris is a nanny state tyrant. As attorney general, she helped prosecute pro-life undercover journalist David Daleiden.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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