Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal would cost $70,000-plus per household in first year: Study

In its first year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal would cost more than $70,000 per household in five states for higher costs for energy, housing, transportation and shipping, according to a study released Tuesday.

In five model states — Alaska, Florida, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Pennsylvania — the ambitious resolution aimed at achieving net-zero emissions by 2030 would come at a high price to consumers, said researchers at the free-market groups Power for the Future and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

“Economists and experts have been warning us for months about the devastating effects of the Green New Deal, and now we have the numbers to prove it,” said Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future. “This study only calculates a fraction of the cost of Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez’s radical plan, which amounts to a socialist free-for-all with no regard for the American taxpayer.”

Introduced in February, the Green New Deal goes far beyond replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, calling for state-sponsored jobs, universal health care and an increased minimum wage, making “a full calculation of the costs impossible,” the study said, elaborating that “the estimates are low-end approximations, given the unprecedented scope of the proposal.”

The Green New Deal resolution argues that climate change is projected to cost $500 billion annually in lost U.S. economic output by 2100, while the plan will create “millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security.”

Mr. Turner countered that households would be “forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars in the first year alone to fund AOC’s ideological wish list.”

CEI’s @KentatCEI & @DanielTurnerPTF from @PowerTheFuture release new study which finds the #GreenNewDeal would cost households in 5 states more than $70K for electricity, upgrading vehicles and housing, and shipping in 1st year of implementation. https://t.co/ja2r7m2tRE

— Competitive Enterprise Institute (@ceidotorg) July 30, 2019

Alaska would experience the highest cost increase — $100,505 per household in the first year, dropping to $73,092 in years two through five, and $67,536 in the sixth year and thereafter, the research found.

In the other four states, the cost per household in the first year ranged from $73,010 to $71,910, with the price tag dropping to about $38,000 in year six. The 2016 U.S. average real median household income was $59,039, according to the U.S. Census.

“Our analysis shows that, if implemented, the Green New Deal would cost for American households at least tens of thousands of dollars annually on a permanent basis,” said CEI President and CEO Kent Lassman. “Perhaps that’s why exactly zero Senate Democrats, including the resolution’s 12 co-sponsors, voted for the Green New Deal when they had the chance.”

Six Democratic presidential nomination contenders — Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernard Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — have co-sponsored the Green New Deal, although the measure failed 57-0 after most Democrats voted “present” in the March Senate vote, calling it a stunt.