Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week pushed for a “Green New Deal” as she backed more than 200 young protesters at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office. | Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo Energy & Environment Ocasio-Cortez gets in closed-door fight with veteran lawmaker over climate change

A fight broke out in a closed-door meeting of House Democrats over climate change as a powerful veteran lawmaker fought with freshman star Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members-elect over the creation of a special panel for the issue.

New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, incoming chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee — backed by a number of other committee members — slammed the creation of the new climate panel, according to multiple sources in the room. Pallone argued that his committee and other existing panels within the House could take on the issue aggressively.


But Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Rep.-elect Joe Neguse (Colo.) and some of the other progressive incoming lawmakers fought back, saying they ran on the issue and needed to do it. Ocasio-Cortez earlier this week pushed for a “Green New Deal” as she backed more than 200 young protesters at House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Ocasio-Cortez later said it wasn’t a direct confrontation with Pallone in a tweet late Thursday.

“I never even [had] a direct interaction with him today,” she tweeted, “and by direct interaction, I mean I didn’t share a conversation. I did say hello and he is very kind.”

Watching it all from the sidelines was Pelosi, who has already called for reinstatement of the select panel that she first set more than a decade ago. Ocasio-Cortez has praised Pelosi for reinstating the special committee, even though she wants it to have far broader authority to craft legislation remaking the U.S. energy grid.

“We need to act on climate change NOW w/ a *fossil fuel $-free* Select Committee *with a mandate* to draft a Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted earlier Thursday. “It’s our best chance to beat the clock.”



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Pallone declined to comment on what happened during the closed-door meeting, but further explained why he opposes the select committee.

“My fear is that if you have a select committee, by the time the select committee gets going, gets appointed and hires staff that it might actually delay what we’re doing,” the New Jersey Democrat told reporters. “We’ve got people who are in charge of these committees who are very progressive and I just don’t see the need for the select committee. I think it may actually delay what the progressives are trying to achieve.”

Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, was not in the meeting but said he heard it included "a pretty lively discussion" of climate change. Chakrabarti said Pelosi's office has been in touch about how to "merge" some of Ocasio-Cortez's proposals into the plan for the new committee.

“So far [Pelosi] is pushing to have the conversation,” Chakrabarti said. “They seem pretty excited about this as well. I’m really hoping we can get this done together.”

Chakrabarti said reviving the panel could provide another forum for discussing legislation along the lines of the “Green New Deal” concept Ocasio-Cortez floated Tuesday. He said Ocasio-Cortez’s staff has reached out to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the House Rules Committee to advocate including it in the rules package governing the new Democratic-led House.

A senior Democratic aide said the proposal discussed at today's meeting was to establish a committee resembling the one that existed between 2007 and 2011.

“A draft proposal was presented today to the caucus that includes Pelosi’s recommendation of reinstating the select panel on climate that existed the last time dems were in the majority,” the aide said in an email.

Ocasio-Cortez has become a media sensation since she defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, seen by some as a potential future speaker, in a June primary. She said Thursday that climate change is an “important” factor in her vote for speaker.

Other chairmen-in-waiting, including Natural Resources ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Transportation ranking member Peter DeFazio, have also questioned whether the climate committee is necessary.

“I don’t know that we need another panel,” DeFazio told POLITICO.

Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) said “a vast majority” of the caucus supports the aims Ocasio-Cortez and her allies laid out, but that it’s just a question of whether working through the standard committee structure is more effective.

“I think that it’s great that [Ocasio-Cortez] put that down,” he told POLITICO. “People appreciate her emphasis on that, but people also believe we have not allowed the committee structure to work in an open and fair way.”