Gillibrand says she thinks ‘Green New Deal’ can gain bipartisan support

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Monday said that she believes the “Green New Deal” can gain bipartisan support in Congress.

Gillibrand said during an interview on “CBS This Morning” that the Green New Deal has “three things” that can garner support on both sides of the aisle: infrastructure, jobs, and clean air and water.

{mosads}”These are not new ideas. It is infrastructure, which is wildly bipartisan. More money for mass transit, more money for electric grids, more money for rural water supplies. Roads, bridges, everything,” she said. “The second piece is jobs. It’s all about training people to do wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, biofuels.”

“And the third part of the Green New Deal is clean air and clean water, and I can’t think of a more universal issue,” she added.

Gillibrand, who has formed an exploratory committee for a presidential bid and has said she is running, added that the “thing we all have in common” is that “we love our children.”

“We don’t want our children to be poisoned by the water they drink or the air that they breathe,” she said.

The Green New Deal seeks to shift the U.S. to renewable energy in an effort to fight climate change.

The plan was introduced into Congress last month by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). 

Republicans have so far attacked the plan, with some members of the GOP casting it as a socialist proposal.