Dianne Feinstein Won’t Water Down Green New Deal

In reaction to the news that Sen. Dianne Feinstein won’t introduce her watered down draft climate resolution (alternate to the Green New Deal, S. Res. 59), RL Miller of Climate Hawks Vote states: “Thanks to Senator Feinstein for respecting nearly 2,000 California climate hawks demanding that she not introduce the weak draft resolution first published on Friday.”

Climate Hawks Vote members in California sent nearly 2,000 letters to Senator Feinstein in 48 hours demanding that she not introduce the watered down draft resolution, on the grounds that it had both policy and political flaws.

“Senator Feinstein’s draft resolution didn’t respect the science. It ignored politically popular aspects of the Green New Deal such as a jobs program. It ignored the need to keep California’s oil in the ground — and it’s inexcusable that California’s senior senator writes a resolution ignoring Trump’s threat to drill for oil off the California coast. And it was bad politics, threatening to divide Senate Democrats,” says Miller.

The resolution was spotted on Senator Feinstein’s website on Friday, February 22, shortly after a video showing her meeting with climate activist youth went viral. Miller put out an early critique of the resolution, its policy and its politics, on Twitter on Friday night that was widely shared, and asked Californians to take action on Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has recently moved the timetable for a vote on the Green New Deal back from “imminent” to “sometime before August.”

Climate Hawks Vote endorsed Kevin de Leon in his challenge to Feinstein in 2018.