Blaze News investigates: Ocasio-Cortez 'relaunches' Green New Deal for housing, but she has a secret strategy that doesn't depend on it passing

Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York released another version of her infamous "Green New Deal" in March to muted fanfare, but the law may have a secret strategy that has nothing to do with passing through Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez originally offered the multi-trillion-dollar proposal in 2019 and was lambasted by many on the right who criticized the bill as being prohibitively expensive and unconstitutionally expansive. In one particularly embarrassing episode, a draft version of the bill was released and critics mocked it for containing text that it would work to ban emissions from "farting cows." It was later deleted.

The newer version appears to be lesser in scope but still dangerous and contrary to the traditional principles of the U.S. according to fossil fuel advocate Daniel Turner.

Turner lambasted the new bill in an interview with Blaze Media where he characterized it as part of a campaign to redefine words in order to push the far-left agenda.

"The phrase 'Green New Deal' is going to become a lot like 'health crisis,'" he said.

Turner pointed out that the Biden administration was using the idea of a "health crisis" in order to impose every "progressive agenda item on their perpetual wish list."

He pointed to the Biden administration banning menthol cigarettes as one example of government control being expanded under the guise of public health.

"And now you can't smoke menthol cigarettes. You can smoke other cigarettes, right, but they want to ban menthol cigarettes because it's a crisis," Turner explained. "So, if you just label something a crisis, suddenly you have preternatural wisdom and extra-constitutional authority because you have given it that title."

That Ocasio-Cortez is targeting housing is not an accident, he says, because "public housing is a favorite pet of leftists, generally speaking."

Housing is not a human right

Turner focused on a pivotal aspect of the legislation that would change U.S. policy to guarantee the right to housing for every individual.

The proposal not only makes housing a human right but says that the government should provide affordable housing to each individual through spending that adds up to as much as a quarter of a trillion dollars over ten years.

"Right is another one of the favored phrases of the left because once you label something a right, then the government has an obligation to fulfill that right," Turner explained.

"That's why our enumerated rights are very few in the Constitution. Government does have the responsibility to protect your rights to speech and the press and assembly and religion, et cetera," he continued. "But once you declare housing a right, well, there are obligations to fulfill that right, and that's never been within the understanding of our government and the way it functions and the understanding of our society."

Turner went on to compare the proposal to those rights that are granted by socialist democracies in Western Europe, where workers are far less productive and earn far less than their counterparts in the U.S.

"So again, it's pushing America to something that it's not in its very nature," he said.

But he believes the "Green New Deal" will be used as a label to allow more government control in other areas of public policy.

"We'll see Green New Deals on transportation, Green New Deals on everything. And it'll be the excuse to push progressive government-issue items," he added.

The secret strategy behind the bill

Turner opined that there may be a strategy behind the bill that has nothing to do with it actually being passed. Progressives have said that the original bill was successful in pushing the Biden administration toward passing a climate bill even though the Green New Deal never came close to passing on its own.

"That's exactly what we're dealing with in the modern progressive left, it's obfuscation, deception, and flat-out lies," he explained.

Even Biden has admitted the trillion-dollar "Inflation Reduction Bill" was actually a way to use the inflation crisis to impose global warming policies on the U.S. economy. Turner says legislative history provides ample evidence to support the thesis.

"When they controlled both chambers and the White House, so starting in 2021 until January 2023, they could have easily passed the Green New Deal as legislation and they didn't. They didn't because they knew they did not actually want to put their names behind it. And parenthetically, we could say they could have introduced lots of legislation, loan forgiveness, abortion laws, but they chose not to," Turner said.

"So the Green New Deal, as much as they admire it as a piece of legislative strategy, they never introduced it when they had the authority to do so," he concluded.

'Ideology trumps reality'

Turner went on to say that the legislation was a perfect example of Democrats manipulating the definitions of words in service to a political ideology.

"If I can control your language, I can control your reality," he explained. "Their manipulation of language from 'rights' to 'housing' and 'Green New Deal' as well as just hiding behind other phrases like 'Inflation Reduction Act.' They never present the agenda honestly to the American people," he said.

"They try to sneak it through the backdoor because they know it's incredibly unpopular, and on its own, two feet could not stand."

Housing, said Turner, shows how Democrats lean in to government control even after it has shown to fail over and over.

"I'm originally from New York City and the New York Housing Authority, NYCHA, is always in the news because it is the largest landlord in the city, and it's a slumlord. And because it's the government, there is no incentive to make sure the heat works, the electricity works, the pipes don't freeze. There is no incentive for upkeep, for maintenance, for even safety," said Turner.

"And yet the private sector will have these spot inspections for asbestos and lead paint and get fined through the roof," he explained, "but when the government is the housing authority, all that is pushed aside."

A 2023 poll from the Bipartisan Policy Center found that the vast majority of Americans want Congress to focus on increasing the availability of low-income housing, but 71% didn't even know about the programs already available.

"Why would you want more of this? Why would you want more government involved in housing when housing has just been a disaster for the units that they run, and it's also driven up the prices for the rest of New Yorkers because there's only so many apartments on the island of Manhattan. And if New York City controls a certain percent, then the remaining ones, the price of rent goes through the roof," he continued.

"You just scratch your head and realize that their ideology trumps reality," Turner concluded.

Daniel Turner is a fossil fuel advocate and the founder and executive director of Power the Future, a national nonprofit that fights for American energy workers in rural communities.

Blaze Media reached out to Ocasio-Cortez and gave her ample time to comment, but her office did not respond.

Blaze Media also reached out to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who cosponsored the bill, for a comment about its costs, but his office did not respond.

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