Double Talk: MJ + The Green New Deal, Carbon Tax & Cap and Trade

Election Day is 12 days away and Texas voters still don’t know who MJ Hegar is – let alone her policy plans. The latter is a result of her deliberate evasiveness toward deep dives into policy. Time to hold her to account.

Today we look at: The Green New Deal, Carbon Tax & Cap and Trade 

Just last night, MJ Hegar invited Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey to Texas. The same Ed Markey who co-authored the Green New Deal along with AOC and Elizabeth Warren (MJ’s original pick for president). The Ed Markey who also authored the Waxman-Markey Climate Change agenda – both of which would result in “severe consequences-including crushing energy costs, millions of jobs lost and falling household income.”

Markey’s plans are MJ’s aspirations.

Another national Democrat she’s taking cues from: Joe Biden. MJ mirrors Biden’s Green New Deal talking points: Not supportive of the Green New Deal’s branding, but is on-board with its substance and spirit. “I support the intent… It politicizes the most important issue facing our kids, which is climate changes, and I would like to sever the politics away from it as much as possible and build a broad bipartisan coalition” (E&E News, 9/30/20). 

MJ flip flops on a carbon tax depending what audience she’s speaking to, but we have the receipts: “I stand with the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club, who support a carbon tax.” (Rolling Stone, 8/14/20)

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Her energy portfolio is written by the Sierra Club and League of Conservation Voters, and she recently said she wants to implement the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – “the first mandatory cap-and-trade program in the United States to limit carbon dioxide from the power sector.” 

According to The Heritage Foundation, the bill sponsored by her new quid-pro-quo Senate partner, Markey, would devastate Texas:

  • Reduced Gross State Product: $26.128 billion
  • Reduced Personal Income: $9.187 billion
  • Jobs Destroyed: 94,041
  • Raised Electricity Prices: $890.59 per household
  • Raised Gasoline Prices: $0.62 Per Gallon 

As a bonus: E&E News reports, “Hegar said she does not believe there are many ‘fans of fracking’ beyond those who profit from it” – yet another implicit example of how she aspires to pull the rug out from energy.

MJ “has yet to detail specific funding plans” for her radical energy plans. That’s not acceptable. The stakes are too high to allow her to hide her REAL PLANS.  

12 days to go. Enough talk. Texans deserve to know exactly where she stands.