WASHINGTON ― The major climate and energy proposal known as the Green New Deal failed to advance in the Senate on Tuesday as Democrats slammed Republicans for orchestrating a bad-faith exercise designed to expose divisions in their ranks.

Most Democrats, most of whom view the resolution as an ambitious road map to address the threat of climate change, declined to engage by voting “present.” Republicans, meanwhile, all voted not to advance the resolution after spending weeks ridiculing it as “loony,” unnecessary and wildly unrealistic.

The measure, which was nonbinding, fell short of the necessary 60-vote threshold needed to advance to a final vote. No senators voted in support of it. Four members of the Democratic caucus voted against it: Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Doug Jones of Alabama, and independent Angus King of Maine.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) jointly issued the resolution, which staked out the basic tenets of what future legislation on a Green New Deal should strive for, including guaranteeing clean-energy jobs to millions of Americans, bolstering electric vehicle manufacturing and generating as much of the nation’s electricity from renewables as possible over the next decade.

Sixty-four Democrats signed on as co-sponsors from the start, a number that ballooned to 100 in just a few weeks, with 89 co-sponsors in the House and 11 in the Senate. But the resolution proved divisive as Republicans lampooned it with unfounded claims that the proposal called for banning hamburgers and risked triggering a “genocide.”

Unions that rely on the fossil fuel industry for high-wage jobs came out against the resolution. In response, some moderate Democrats dismissed the resolution’s goals of aiding Americans suffering the health effects of pollution and issued their own weaker, less specific climate proposals instead.

Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced he would be bringing the resolution to the floor to give senators an “opportunity to go on record and see how they feel,” betting it would prove too radical for a good number of Democrats.

But Democratic leadership urged members to unite against the gambit by voting “present,” a strategy they view as their best option to contain divisions within their ranks regarding the resolution. The party executed a similar move in 2017 when Republicans teed up a vote on a “Medicare for All” plan authored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-V.t.).