As green energy is failing around the world, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is claiming credit for the Democratic Party’s embrace of climate change chicanery as found in President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
In a recent interview with GQ, AOC told the men’s magazine that it was a “bittersweet” moment watching Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) give speeches in 2021 addressing carbon dioxide emissions.
“Here were these two very powerful individuals, very powerful men, delivering speeches that were basically in their content and in their substance just complete Green New Deal framing,” AOC said in reference to her signature climate change legislation.
“I’m listening and I literally know that if I say and read that same exact speech, it is treated not just by the right but by my own party as radical, impossible, flippant, uninformed,” she lamented. “But now the president of the United States is saying it. And so it feels very powerful because I wrote a lot of those words. That he wouldn’t be invoking these frames if it wasn’t for the work of movements and what we pushed.”
Lori Lodes, executive director of Climate Power, opined that the $369 billion given toward green energy and other progressive environmental goals included in the Inflation Reduction Act was because of AOC’s efforts.
“The only reason this is happening,” she said of the spending, “is directly because of AOC and young people rising up and speaking out and demanding.”
That money will be steered to certain companies and organizations by Democrat John Podesta, a fierce partisan. In other words, Podesta — not the free market — will be picking winners and losers.
Under the Obama administration, when similar efforts were tried, Americans wound up with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars heading toward disasters like Solyndra.
The bill also offers tax credits for things like spending thousands of dollars on new windows or buying government-approved electric vehicles — you just have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to take advantage of those offerings.
“The problem isn’t the size of the credit or even EVs themselves. The real problem is politicians attempting to force a transition to energy sources they prefer, having no inhibitions about the arrogance of such a central planning scheme, the restrictions it imposes on freedom, or the trade-offs, limitations, and collateral damage those policies cause at Americans’ expense,” the Heritage Foundation’s Katie Tubb explained.
Indeed, America can see a glimpse of what that sort of “central planning scheme” looks like by taking a peek into California.
California recently banned the sale of new gasoline cars by 2035. Just days later, California requested that residents refrain from charging their electric vehicles during certain times due to a heatwave and strain on the electrical grid.
On Tuesday, California leaders urged residents to keep their home air-conditioning units set to 78 degrees or higher to avoid blackouts during specific times. The Golden State wants everybody to switch to electric cars, yet it can’t explain how its grid will hold up once everybody does as it struggles under the current reality.
Yet for some reason, Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm wants California to be the model when it comes to electric vehicles.
“California has gotten more used to electric vehicles and we have to bring down the price of electric vehicles so that everybody can access them,” she recently said while touting the aforementioned tax credits — which don’t even begin until 2024.
There’s also evidence that Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act legislation will jack up the cost of fuel as it increases costs in the oil industry.
So, if AOC wants to take credit for a bill that doesn’t exactly help Americans buy electric vehicles, will more likely than not result in crony capitalism, and works to create an electric grid that buckles under heat like California’s — let her have it.
If the Democratic Party wants to say it was the party’s idea, that works too.
At least Americans will know who to blame for the pending economic and energy disaster signed into law by Biden.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.