A call from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., for an environmental emergency declaration is a "new Green New Deal" that will be a "green bomb," for the nation's strong and growing economy, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Tuesday.
"There are things we're working on in a bipartisan way to deal with the impact of carbon dioxide on the environment, but I am not one of these climate alarmists," Sen. Barrasso told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "I'm a realist, saying there are things we need to do long term and they have to be done globally."
Sanders and others are instead promoting plans that are "unaffordable, unworkable," Barrasso said. "They want us to act dramatically, unilaterally and immediately, and the United States is only about 13% of global emissions."
Instead, scientific solutions are needed that can be deployed in places that are making the most greenhouse gases, such as in China and India, Barrasso said, because "if they don't adopt them, no matter what we do in the United States, we'll make no difference at all."
Barrasso added he has repeatedly said the climate is changing and man has a responsibility.
"There are solutions that we're adopting in the Senate that the president has signed to make a difference," said Barrasso, including on new-age nuclear power.
He also called for finding ways to make carbon dioxide into products that can be sold, "not regulation and taxation."
"What the Democrats are proposing, and they're doing it again today is unaffordable for the American public," Barrasso said. "It would add to the cost of families about $65,000 per family per year. No one can afford that, and it's unpopular even with the unions who say this would cost millions of American jobs and ultimately would ship the lifeblood of our economy to China."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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