Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed Green New Deal would cost the average household nearly $75,000 in the first year in key swing states, driving the U.S. economy into a “steep economic depression,” according to a study released Wednesday.
The study, conducted by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, Power the Future, and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, examined the ambitious House and Senate resolution’s projected impact on energy costs in 11 states.
In the first year, the Green New Deal would cost a typical household a minimum of $74,287, with annual costs falling to $47,755 per household in the next four years, excluding Alaska, and $40,706 each year thereafter.
The 11 states studied were Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The costs were associated with electricity generation; shipping and logistics costs; new vehicles, and building retrofits.
The costs would hit Alaska hardest at an estimated $84,584 per household in the first year, with additional expenses dropping to $51,740 after year five.
CEI president Kent Lassman said the Green New Deal as a “politically motivated policy that will saddle households with exorbitant costs and wreck our economy.”
“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,” Mr. Lassman said. “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.”
Among the Senate resolution’s co-sponsors, who now number 14, are Democratic presidential primary candidates Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
The latest study builds on a July report examining five states by CEI and Power the Future that found the Green New Deal would cost the average household more than $70,000 in the first year of implementation.
The #GreenNewDeal would devastate Wisconsin’s struggling dairy sector. @willflandersWI @WiLawLiberty estimates the GND would cost farmers $2.5 billion per year to reduce cattle emissions – $2,000 per cow. https://t.co/NBZiQE2vwZ
— Competitive Enterprise Institute (@ceidotorg) February 26, 2020
Supporters argue that the Green New Deal should be viewed as an aspirational document and that without action to achieve net-zero fossil-fuel emissions by 2030, climate change will end up being far more costly and damaging to the economy.
The resolution also calls for creating millions of high-paying union jobs, overhauling all existing buildings, guaranteeing health care and paid vacations, and ensuring social justice through a 10-year “national mobilization.”
Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future, said the current economic boom and record low unemployment are driven by “abundant, domestic, reliable, and inexpensive energy produced by millions of men and women across the country.”
“Any policy that proposes to reverse this success is a threat to jobs, to rural communities, to national security, and to the very prosperity that Americans are experiencing,” he said.
Wisconsin Institute research director Will Flanders said that the Green New Deal would drive “middle-class families into poverty by imposing staggering annual costs.”
“While the Green New Deal may play well with coastal elites, in Midwestern states like Wisconsin, families, businesses, and farms depend on affordable, reliable energy,” Mr. Flanders said.
The study emphasized that the costs estimates, drawn from available data and analysis, “are low-end approximations, given the Green New Deal’s unprecedented scope.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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