Republicans are outraged, outraged I tell you, about President Biden’s nomination of Representative Deb Haaland‘s nomination to be Secretary of the Interior. Putting aside the tone-deaf nature of white men whining about Federal control of land to a Native American leader, the truthiness nature of attack lines is both astounding — and, sadly, not surprising. Over the weeks since the nomination leading into and in today’s Senate confirmation hearing, an interminable litany of deceit has peppered (if not been central) to Republican explanations of their opposition to this historic nomination.
In today’s hearing, alone, the number of false claims that President Biden is pursuing job-killing (rather than truthful job creation) energy paths forward are too rapid to keep track of. But false attacks on clean energy jobs aren’t the only line of attack. As another (stunning) example: Montana Republican Senator Steve Daines claimed that President Biden’s policies were already boosting pollution loads (said without any facial signs of self-reflection on hypocrisy) with a key example: the tar-sands super-polluter enabling Keystone XL pipeline permit cancellation. Yup, never mind the gigatons of tar-sands pollution, how dare President Biden lift Keystone XL’s permit since it would be “net zero by 2030” and thus cancelling Keystone, according to fossil-foolish Daines, boosts pollution. Living in alternative realities can, evidently, boost one’s campaign war chest.
In opposing Haaland, Republicans are making clear that Trump’s Biggest Lie isn’t in our past but part and parcel of today’s Republican Party. Like Trump’s frequently false assertion that the Green New Deal would cost $100 trillion based on a biased and (seriously) flawed “analysis” (that focused on inflated costs, for example, while even larger ignoring benefits), Republicans are asserting that Rep. Haaland’s co-sponsorship of the Green New Deal is grounds for opposing her nomination. A letter from 15 House Republicans (about the lead author) explicitly makes this point and, in doing so, cites the exact same deceptive source that underpinned Trump’s Biggest Lie. From that letter:
The harmful effects of the Green New Deal are well-documented, but it includes eliminating air travel, responsible petroleum development, and the use of non-electric vehicles, costing each American family $65,000 and the United States $93 trillion annually.
So much deceit in just one sentence (benefits, not harm; poorly assessed rather than well-documented; benefits rather than costs; …), but the repetition of the “$93 trillion” lie merits serious pushback. Some points:
- The Green New Deal proposals have far more than direct climate action but address social equity and resiliency (health care for all, job guarantees, and otherwise). Climate action is only a fraction of proposed Green New Deal investments.
- And, the total Green New Deal investment requirement over 30 years would fall below $100T and, as per below, have outsized benefits. These expenditures would be investments with returns for the nation.
- For real understanding, that analysis focuses on (and inflates) costs in total isolation to other issues:
- What would costs be without the proposed investments?
- Just in direct health care, the Green New Deal path would lower societal economic costs $16T over a ten year period. (The $93T cost assertion includes $36T for health care but ignores that BAU (business as usual) would be $52T and thus the GND proposed path would save, again, $16T.)
- What would benefits be beyond ‘business as usual’?
- For example, with reduced pollution, how much would American worker productivity and student performance improve and thus boost the economy?
- In other words, quality policy analysis does not focus just on discussing and assessing “cost” but is “cost/benefit” (better term: investment/return) analysis that helps decision-makers (and those involved in the policy discussion) have an understanding of net costs or, more accurately, net benefits to support decision-making.
- What would costs be without the proposed investments?
The attacks on Rep. Haaland’s nomination are filled with deceit. Some of this is patently (head-slapping) obvious and some requires digging to provide truth. Just as with echoing Trump’s Biggest Lie, much (most?) of this is part and parcel of the decades-long fossil-foolish Republican Big Lie fostering predatory delay and denying climate science. To the extent that sunshine disinfects, these lies should not be allowed to propagate without challenge.