| House Democrats finally have a climate plan. The Washington Post calls it “ambitious”; The New York Times calls it “broad”; and TNR’s Kate Aronoff observes this morning that, despite being 538 pages long, the plan seems to have skipped a number of key issues surrounding finance, global governance, and transitioning the economy off fossil fuels without severe disruption to people’s livelihoods.
The Democrats propose a 2050 deadline for net-zero emissions and a 2035 deadline for manufacturers to produce only electric vehicles. The most impressive thing about the plan, though, is that it exists at all. As pointed out by Earther’s Dharna Noor, it’s been barely a year since Nancy Pelosi dismissed her progressive colleagues’ Green New Deal as “the green dream or whatever they call it.” But the party’s new plan clearly draws on some of the GND proposals and, in general, reflects the influence that climate activists and increasingly climate-concerned Democratic voters have exerted on the more sluggish elements of the party establishment in recent years. As Kate writes, “The document released Tuesday is more ambitious than anything that could have come out of Capitol Hill even a few years ago—thanks largely to pressure coming from inside and outside the halls of power.”
Insofar as Kate’s piece criticizes oversights in this new plan, it’s worth remembering that this sort of criticism seems to have been vital to getting Democrats to release such a plan to begin with. Read her piece for an overview of the plan’s high and low points.
If you’re craving a chaser—something a little quirkier going into the July Fourth weekend—try this New York Times piece about elk taking over abandoned coal mines in Kentucky or the paper’s gorgeous photo essay about the “dogs of the sea.”
—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor | 