Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday that Americans need to embrace green energy and the Green New Deal because it will save them money.
“It’s time to save American taxpayers money and get jobs for Americans who right now are suffering because of the mismanagement of COVID-19,” Garcetti told “MSBNC Live.”
“In fact, about 1 out of 4 jobs we’ve created here in Los Angeles have been by investing in a Green New Deal that puts forward a new energy economy, electrifying our transportation, making our buildings more efficient,” Garcetti continued, adding that by making a building more energy efficient, “it’s actually cheaper for the landlords and for the tenants.” (RELATED: Los Angeles Mayor Will Cut Off Power, Water To ‘Non-Essential’Businesses That Defy Orders To Close)
The mayor also noted that electric buses “run on an energy that costs less to the rider and to the system.”
Critics have attacked the Democratic Party’s Green New Deal as both unrealistic and expensive for taxpayers, with the American Action Forum predicting the plan could cost $93 trillion over a decade and every taxpayer $65,000 a year.
Garcetti also said that solar energy was a panacea of cost savings. “We just made one of the cheapest deals in the country … for solar energy, one of the things that [Democratic presidential nominee] Joe Biden has pushed. It created jobs and it was cheaper than a new gas plant.”
The mayor said with Biden as president, green energy programs are “going to put millions of jobs into the hands of Americans.”
MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle wondered why all Americans aren’t buying into Garcetti’s green energy plans: “Why does that message get lost … Because by what you just laid out, that doesn’t sound political, it sounds essential,” she said. (RELATED: Tucker Carlson: Los Angeles Is Controlled By ‘Neurotic Megalomaniac’ Mayor Eric Garcetti)
“This is the fight of our life. This has to be the climate decade, a decade of action,” Garcetti responded, claiming that although it is “too late to reverse what we’ve done,” it may not be too late to “save our lives” or to stop millions or billions of “climate refugees from traveling on this globe.”
US President Donald Trump disembarks from Air Force One upon arrival at Lima Allen County Airport in Lima, Ohio, March 20, 2019, as he travels to visit a military manufacturing facility and attend a fundraiser. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The mayor said that green energy dissenters are those “who have a lot of power in the old system, including [President Donald Trump].”
“He wants to reward his cronies, he wants to make sure that our cars continue to pollute, that his billionaire friends make some short-term money.”
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was the driving force behind the Green New Deal, is Biden’s environmental advisor.
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey defeated Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III with the support of Ocasio-Cortez and the assistance of the Green New Deal-promoting Sunrise Movement.