Democrats are quietly stepping back from the once-celebrated Green New Deal, a policy they championed for years as the ultimate climate fix.
According to recent data, congressional Democrats have drastically cut mentions of the Green New Deal while Republicans hammer away at Biden-era climate policies, signaling a sharp pivot in political messaging on environmental issues, The Daily Caller reported.
Back in 2018, the Green New Deal burst onto the scene as a bold framework to tackle climate change with sweeping economic and environmental reforms.
Fast forward to today, and the phrase has nearly vanished from Democratic talking points, with only six mentions in the past three months, per data reported by Axios.
Contrast that with Republicans, who’ve tossed the term around 337 times in the same period, often as a punching bag to critique progressive climate agendas.
President Donald Trump has dubbed these initiatives the "Green New Scam," and he’s made good on campaign promises to dismantle subsidies and programs tied to the previous administration’s environmental push.
Trump’s administration has already slashed preferential treatment for wind energy and shuttered environmental justice offices, redirecting federal focus to what they call core agency missions.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are pushing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to phase out green energy tax credits from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, a law that echoed many Green New Deal priorities.
That 2022 legislation, signed by former President Joe Biden, pumped massive subsidies into green energy, though some Democrats grumbled it fell short of true climate ambition.
In 2023, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey reintroduced Green New Deal legislation, with Ocasio-Cortez proclaiming, "When we first introduced the Green New Deal, we were told that our vision for the future was too aspirational."
She added that core ideas made it into the Inflation Reduction Act, yet insisted, "there is still much, much more to do" for environmental justice. But let’s be real—reintroducing a bill is one thing; getting traction in today’s political climate is another, especially when their offices didn’t even respond to recent requests for comment.
Interestingly, while congressional chatter has cooled, many state-level Democrats are still charging ahead with aggressive climate targets, showing the party isn’t fully abandoning the cause—just rewrapping the package.
Public sentiment might explain the pivot, as a 2023 Pew Research poll revealed most Americans aren’t eager to ditch fossil fuels entirely and rank climate lower than economic or health concerns.
Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, put it bluntly to the Daily Caller News Foundation: "We’re at a remarkable point in the evolution of climate, and it’s trending downward right now." He’s not wrong—when even some Democrats admit to Politico they’ve "lost the culture war" on climate, it’s clear the messaging needs a serious overhaul, not just a new hashtag.
Milloy also warned, "Climate-change crazed Democrats may have to lay low for a while, but they’ll be back." And he’s likely onto something—history shows that progressive policy ideas, even when sidelined, tend to resurface with new branding when the political winds shift.
