Republicans should embrace an ‘Operation Warp Speed’ for climate change
That’s where this week’s news comes in. Tesla, the all-electric vehicle company headed by Elon Musk, posted its first yearly profit as vehicle sales soared. The company sold more than 500,000 cars worldwide last year and is projected to sell as many as 1 million this year. America’s largest vehicle producer, General Motors, is also betting heavily on an all-electric future, announcing that it plans to make its entire fleet all-electric by 2035. Both moves have been boosted by Biden’s executive order directing the federal government to make plans to convert its substantial vehicle fleet to consist solely of American-made electric and low-emission vehicles. Pulled by consumer demand and pushed by the federal government, the automobile industry is moving toward an electric future.
This is reminiscent of how the government drove the unprecedentedly fast development and manufacture of vaccines against covid-19. The Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed reduced regulatory barriers and provided a guaranteed market for private companies to do what they do best — innovate and produce. That push and pull gave companies such as Moderna and Pfizer the incentives to get to work. Thanks to this public-private symbiosis, we are now vaccinating hundreds of thousands of people a day less than one year after the pandemic struck the United States. That accomplishment is unheard of, and could not have been done by either the private or public sectors working alone.
A similar approach to fighting climate change could bring Republicans to the table on climate change discussions. “Operation Green Planet” could combine federal deregulation that impedes the development or use of green technologies, such as nuclear power. It could also use federal purchasing to push private companies to innovate across the board. The policies shouldn’t try to pick winners or losers; instead, they should spur competition to discover new ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or increase their capture and storage.
This private-sector-friendly approach would contrast greatly with the Green New Deal, which essentially envisions permanent federal control over the entire economy. That’s not partisan hyperbole; the Green New Deal resolution itself calls for “a new national, social, industrial and economic mobilization on a scale not seen since World War II.” During the war, the government established wage and price controls, rationing of goods and a War Production Board that established what private companies could and could not produce. At least such government control ended when the war was over.
By definition, climate control can never be over; without permanent government economic controls, there would always be the risk that carbon emissions could resume. Maybe that’s why the chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the author of the Green New Deal, said that they thought of the document as a “how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing” rather than a climate change plan. That makes it clear the Green New Deal is just an exercise in watermelon politics: environmentalist green on the outside, juicy socialist red on the inside.
A Republican “Green Planet” plan could also invoke memories of the successful Kennedy-era moon landing. Coordinated by NASA, the federal program contracted with hundreds of private firms to create the technology necessary to land a human on the moon. The resulting advances became the backbone of a host of commercial products that launched a high-tech revolution. Imagine the excitement a “National Earth Safety Administration” could engender if it administered a similar technological revolution. NASA reached for the moon; NESA could reach the stars.
Running against democratic socialism means more than just saying no. Like conservatives in the early 20th century, it also means saying yes. Back then, conservatives said yes to antitrust laws, pure food and drug acts, and workers’ compensation laws that curbed private activity in the name of the public interest. Fighting socialism cloaked in green garb will require similar ingenuity. Creating a climate change version of Operation Warp Speed is how Republicans can both take the climate change issue away from the Democrats and preserve American freedom.
Read more:
