Rep. Debbie Dingell Challenges Green New Deal With New Legislation That Pledges Climate Action by 2050

by Robin Bravender

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Dearborn) will soon roll out ambitious legislation to require the United States to achieve a 100% clean energy economy by 2050, she said Thursday. 

The Michigander is one of several Democratic lawmakers spearheading the bill, which has been in the works for months. The legislation is expected to require economy-wide net-zero greenhouse gas emissions; it will also direct federal agencies to draft plans to clamp down on emissions that contribute to climate change. 

“We have a crisis,” Dingell said Thursday at an event held by the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington, D.C.-based think tank. 

She pointed to hurricanes and wildfires that have devastated other parts of the country. “Michigan may be safe from that dramatic kind of weather, but we keep having a once-every-100-year storm every year. So people know that we have to do something.” 

The bill will be formally released in the coming weeks, Dingell said, noting that there are now 117 co-sponsors and that its supporters are working to boost that number to 150. 

The proposal’s targets are less ambitious than the Green New Deal, a proposal championed by U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that aims to transition the United States to 100% renewable energy by 2030. Dingell isn’t among the House Democrats who have signed onto that proposal. 

Major bills to tackle climate change may clear the Democratic-controlled U.S. House this Congress, but they face much tougher prospects in the GOP-controlled U.S. Senate. 

“It’s great that we have Democratic votes in the House, but here’s the reality: We’ve got to get it through a Republican Senate,” Dingell said. 

Still, she added, “I would like to get this done yet this year.” 

Read more at Michigan Advance.