Congressional Democratic establishment wants to replace "Green New Deal" with a climate committee of oil money recipients

The Green New Deal -- championed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Dems -- is one of the most popular Democratic policies in living memory, supported by 81% of registered voters (including 64% of Republicans and 57% of "conservative Republicans"), so of course the Democratic establishment is trying to kill it.

Instead of striking the proposed Green New Deal Select Committee in the House, they will reconvene the Select Committee on Climate Change instead, chaired by six-termer Kathy Castor (D-FL), who has said that she does not support the call for a "No Fossil Fuel Money pledge," which would bar participation by elected officials who took fossil fuel industry money in climate change work.

Castor said she believed that a bar on participation from Reps who had been funded by oil and coal companies could violate the First Amendment (she later said her response had been "inartful").

Castor said she didn't think she'd received oil and coal money but wasn't sure. She has received $73,000 from coal and oil companies and their PACs. She said she "wasn't sure" if she herself would take the pledge.

When asked whether her climate committee would tackle on the kind of large-scale economic reforms that the IPCC has warned are necessary for the survival of our species, Castor said that was "not going to be our sole focus."

It's not clear whether Ocasio-Cortez will be tapped to serve on the climate committee. Neither she nor the other freshman Dems who ran insurgent campaigns calling for a Green New Deal were contacted by House Dem leaders in advance of this announcement. Read the rest