Robert Hockett, an adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), on Monday told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that he believes the freshman lawmaker’s “Green New Deal” is an economically and politically feasible idea.
When pressed on if the vision was not realistic, Hockett responded that he thought it was “for a number of reasons.”
“I think it’s quite the contrary. I think this is a circumstance where bigger actually is more realistic for a number of reasons,” Hockett, a professor at Cornell University, told hosts Buck Sexton and Krystal Ball.
He said that the approach of targeting climate change a little at a time with “piecemeal” legislation has not produced the results that the public is looking for.
“For one thing, we’ve tried sort of piecemeal climate-saving reform and climate legislation for quite a while, and it’s very difficult to galvanize a broad swath of the public behind some sort of smallish, piecemeal, low-balling or slow-walking sort of proposal,” he continued.
Ocasio-Cortez has championed the resolution, which aims to achieve the goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.
However, Republicans and some Democrats have questioned the resolution’s feasibility, citing high costs.
“What’s needed now, quite urgently, is a national mobilization since we only have 10 to 12 years before we reach a tipping point,” Hockett said, referring to a United Nations report that said climate change would be irreversible if not addressed and that the world had 12 years to keep temperatures to 1.5 degrees of warming.
“That kind of mobilization is what’s required to get real action in any event, so we actually think bigger is more politically feasible.”
“It’s also more economically feasible for a very simple reason, and that is that if we’re completely revamping our national infrastructure, and manufacturing base, and modernizing it with the most modern technologies, we’re going to be improving the productivity of the economy as well,” he said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to force a vote on the measure, which Republicans believe could divide Democrats in Congress, as well as on the 2020 campaign trail.
The resolution has virtually no chance of passing in the upper chamber.
To watch the rest of Robert Hockett’s interview, click here.
— Julia Manchester
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