Sen. Dick Durbin said Wednesday he's read over the "Green New Deal" several times, and he doesn't know yet if he'll vote for it.
"At this point, I can't tell you," the Illinois Democrat and Senate Minority Whip told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "I have read it and I have reread it and I asked, 'What the heck is this?'"
The controversial 14-page proposal by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., earlier this month, includes goals to follow for the country to reach an economy that has a net-zero carbon emission footprint.
"It's an aspiration," said Durbin. "It's a resolution. We're going to ask the Republican leader what's your position on global warming while we're at it. Should he come out on the record and say if human activity is having an impact on the environment? Get it on the record on both sides."
Durbin said he does "certainly agree," though, with the "premise that global warming is a threat to the planet and we're not doing enough."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell already has promised to bring the Green New Deal to a vote and House Republicans are calling for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring it the floor not to avert climate change, but because of hopes to take back Congress seats by casting Democrats as being extreme over the proposal.
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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