Climate Change

Nancy Pelosi Isn’t Rushing to Endorse A.O.C.’s “Green Dream or Whatever They Call It”

The Democratic speaker gives Ocasio-Cortez points for “enthusiasm.”

February 7, 2019

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, released Thursday morning as a House resolution, already has the backing of several prominent Democrats, including Senator Ed Markey, her co-author, and 2020 candidates Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who co-sponsored it. Other current (and potential) 2020 contenders, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, voiced their enthusiastic support for the deal, which proposes a raft of extreme solutions to combat climate change: moving the country to 100 percent renewable energy in 10 years, job guarantees and support for people and communities impacted by a move away from traditional energy sources, and a complete overhaul of the transportation system. “We can save ourselves and we can save the rest of the world with us,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a press conference, surrounded by several of the resolution’s supporters.

Initially, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has was less effusive. Though she’s been one of the biggest advocates for climate-change legislation during her career in Congress, she appeared to downplay the Green New Deal during an interview with Politico published Thursday. Discussing her recently convened climate-change panel, she suggested the deal “will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive.” She added: “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is but they’re for it, right?”

After headlines suggested she’d deliberately undercut the freshman congresswoman, Pelosi appeared to backtrack (somewhat) in a press conference on Thursday. “Quite frankly I haven’t seen it, but I do know that it’s enthusiastic, and we welcome all the enthusiasms that are out there,” she said, adding that she viewed the plan as an effective publicity tool. “The Green New Deal points out that the public is much more aware of the challenge that we face, and that is a good thing, because the public sentiment will help us pass the most bold—common-denominator bold—initiatives, with an interest in, again, saving the planet while we create jobs, protect the health of our children, and pass the planet on in a very serious way.”

There’s nothing to suggest Pelosi’s response was malicious—after all, after a semi-rocky start in which Ocasio-Cortez occupied Pelosi’s office, the New York congresswoman this week expressed admiration for Pelosi, telling NPR that the speaker was doing “a great job.” Rather, the speaker’s lukewarm reception of the Green New Deal more likely has to do with the distinctions between each woman’s approach to climate change, and perhaps to policy overall. Pelosi relies on the old-school methods of legislating and negotiating, while Ocasio-Cortez draws inspiration from the worlds of activism and public relations. “I tend to think that we as a party compromise before we even get to the table,” she told me back in September. “When you’re dealing with these insane people holding the country hostage on the right, you can’t go in with your end point. You have to go in with a strong position.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s decision not to sit on Pelosi’s select panel on climate change, even after Pelosi’s express invitation, suggests a similar divergence. In her remarks on Thursday, Pelosi suggested Ocasio-Cortez’s approach may be shortsighted. “The fact is, you are by definition as an advocate dissatisfied, relentless, and persistent,” she said, recalling her own past disappointments, including a failed attempt to get a sweeping climate-change bill through Congress in 2007. “Whatever the electeds are doing is a compromise, it’s not the purity of what we want.”

Tina Nguyen