The report, released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Power the Future on Wednesday, builds upon a previous study from the organization last summer. Using updated data, the group found that within the first year of implementation, the GND would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in 10 states…
Sam Dorman
Green New Deal would cost swing-state households around $75G in first year: study
A new study claims that progressives’ Green New Deal (GND) would impose around $75,000 in average annual costs for households in key battleground states — raising questions as to how climate politics will impact voter sentiment going into the 2020 elections.
The report, released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Power the Future on Wednesday, builds upon a previous study from the organization last summer. Using updated data, the group found that within the first year of implementation, the GND would cost households an average of between $74,287 and $76,683 in 10 states — Colorado ($74,287), Florida ($76,109), Iowa ($76,683), Michigan ($74,470), New Hampshire ($74,723), New Mexico ($74,432), North Carolina ($74,609), Ohio ($75,807), Pennsylvania ($75,307), and Wisconsin ($75,252).
Those figures incorporate the cost of electricity production within the first year of the program, a one-time upgrade to vehicles and housing, as well as shipping and logistics costs incurred from GND mandates.
CEI also examined Alaska, which would purportedly face $84,584 in average annual household costs during the GND’s first year. While the costs for each of the states declined in the following years, they all faced more than $39,000 in average annual household costs in the long term (six years or more).
SWING-STATE HOUSEHOLDS WOULD LOSE AT LEAST $70G WITHIN FIRST YEAR OF GREEN NEW DEAL, STUDY FINDS
The report also identifies collective costs per state based on all of those factors, omitting electricity production.
In total, these states would face $2.7 trillion in aggregate costs to households. Households just in the key battleground state of Florida would face $700 billion in collective costs to fulfill the GND’s goal of transitioning towards electric vehicles, retrofit residential buildings, and complying with changes to shipping and logistics. Released on Wednesday, the study found that households in other major states — like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — would incur roughly $200-$400 billion in initial costs.
Because the GND is so sweeping in its goals, it was difficult for CEI to fully account for the true costs of implementation. And it’s unclear how Democratic spending would help mitigate the costs incurred by households.
Yet, the free market think tank calculated base estimates showing a hefty price for GND mandates energy-related provisions of the progressive proposal. The other aspects of the proposal, it said, “dwarf the energy-related costs by an order of magnitude.”
As the study’s authors point out, their numbers provide just a basis for the actual cost of the energy-related provisions. For example, their calculations exclude costs for air cargo, as well as for retrofitting commercial and industrial buildings. “Taken together, the estimated costs for retrofitting current residential, commercial, and industrial buildings is astronomical,” wrote authors Daniel Turner and Kent Lassman.
BLOOMBERG’S ‘MERCENARIES’: BILLIONAIRE DEM FUNDING NETWORK OF CLIMATE LAWYERS INSIDE STATE AG OFFICE
“The Green New Deal would effectively destroy America’s energy industry, and with it, our entire economy,” added Turner, the executive director of Power the Future, which partnered with CEI on the project.
“Right now, our booming national economy and record low unemployment rate is driven by abundant, domestic, reliable, and inexpensive energy produced by millions of men and women across the country,” he said. “Any policy that proposes to reverse this success is a threat to jobs, to rural communities, to national security, and to the very prosperity that Americans are experiencing.”
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