The Green New Deal Is a Racial Scam

The Green New Deal (GND) is a scam, not a solution. It won’t save the environment. It will just raise taxes and redistribute whites’ wealth to minorities.

The GND House Resolution, (H.R.109) introduced by socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, says it is the “duty of the Federal Government” to “achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” via a “10-year national mobilization.” This requires transforming the economy through a switch to wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric power.

That’s ambitious enough, but the plan promises new entitlements. A detailed FAQ posted on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s official website guarantees economic security “for all who are unable or unwilling [emphasis mine] to work.” Her staff soon took the FAQ down.

However, H.R. 109 still promises “high-quality health care, affordable, safe, and adequate housing, and economic security” for all “people of the United States.” This sounds like it would cover non-citizens.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, along with other members of Congress, announces the Green New Deal legislation. (Credit Image: © Senate Democrats via ZUMA Wire)

The American Action Forum estimated the GND would cost between $51 and $93 trillion over ten years. Conservatives blasted the plan’s costs, but few pointed out its anti-white bias.

H.R. 109 states there is “a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family.” It claims climate change has a disparate impact on non-whites:

[C]limate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as “systemic injustices”) by disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as “frontline and vulnerable communities”).

Needless to say, a primary GND goal is “to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of . . . ‘frontline and vulnerable communities.’” The plan also calls for “frontline and vulnerable communities” (i.e. non-whites) to plan, implement, and administer the GND “at the local level.”

The GND would redistribute white wealth to non-whites to “repair” alleged past discrimination.

The Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, says the GND “will use the powers of government to rectify past and present injustices.” How? “[S]trong racial, gender, age, and locational affirmative action” will “counter our current employment inequalities.” The GND “will also require standards for local hiring and minority business enterprises” — which sounds like quotas.

Some Democratic presidential candidates propose GND variants that also discriminate against whites.

Bernie Sanders’s GND is “not only a serious climate plan, but an opportunity to uproot historical injustices and inequities to advance social, racial, and economic justice, including redressing the exclusion of black, brown, Native American, and other vulnerable communities from the programs that made up the original New Deal.”

Senator Sanders claims “institutional racism also impacts environmental health.” He wants job training and local hiring to “reflect the racial and gender diversity of the community receiving federal investments.” He promises to overturn a Supreme Court decision that “sets an unreasonable burden of proof of racism for claims of environmental racism.” Under his plan, new jobs will be “available first to displaced workers, veterans, formerly incarcerated people, people with disabilities and people from vulnerable communities.” Funding will be “prioritized for low-income communities [and] communities of color.”

His plan would increase “energy assistance funds” for “low-income families” and splash out $311 billion in more funding for food stamps. Welfare programs already disproportionately benefit non-whites.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s climate change plan vows “to directly confront the racial and economic inequality embedded in our fossil fuel economy,” though it doesn’t provide details. Her “Green New Deal for farmers” pledges more opportunities for “farmers of color.” She would end programs that “have perpetuated discrimination and help rural families of color build wealth and sustainable livelihoods.” Instead, she’d give the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Civil Rights more money to establish set-asides for “new and diverse farmers.”

Sen. Kamala Harris’s Climate Equity Act (CEA) almost exclusively focuses on “frontline communities.” The CEA would make sure they benefit from grants and give them more say in writing rules and regulations. All environmental legislation would need an “equity score” to estimate environmental legislation’s impact on “frontline communities.”

None of these plans fight pollution where it really needs to be fought. China and India lead the world in pollution-related deaths and 22 of the 30 most polluted cities are in India. The ten rivers that account for 90 percent of the plastic pollution in the oceans are in Asia and Africa.

These plans also ignore mass immigration’s environmental impact. “Migrant communities” are among the “frontline communities,” so favoring them means more immigration to the United States. Every Third World migrant generates far more greenhouse gases here than he does in his own country. Yet many Democrats, including Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, effectively support open borders.

On a global basis, the GND won’t stop climate change. It could make it worse.

Whites already pay a disproportionate amount in taxes; the GND would force us to pay even more.

Maybe that’s the real point. The Green New Deal is not a serious plan to help the environment; it’s a handout to non-whites, paid for by whites.