Pelosi, Green New Deal, and Caucus Leadership

Freshman House representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled her "Green New Deal" plan that includes radical measures to address climate change, such as reducing carbon emissions to zero in ten years, that act as merely suggested guidelines rather than substantive policy. While the bill has gained 67 co-sponsors in the House and 11 in the Senate (including presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar), Pelosi has not signaled public support for the bill. Maybe wanting to put the freshman representative in her place, considering the climate change sit-in staged outside her office a few weeks ago, Pelosi said of the bill: "It will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive. The green dream, or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they're for it, right?" Pelosi has also stated in the past year that climate change is her capstone issue.