Aiming to avoid an intraparty fight on the issue, 43 Democrats - including those who introduced the Green New Deal - voted "present."
[...]
Democrats have countered by calling McConnell's maneuver a "sham," saying the vote was held without any hearings or expert testimony, all to scuttle meaningful legislative efforts on climate change.

"McConnell tried to rush the #GreenNewDeal straight to the floor without a hearing," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "The real question we should be asking: Why does the Senate GOP refuse to hold any major hearings on climate change?"

"We don't know if we can get to net-zero carbon emissions in 10 years, but we should certainly try," Gillibrand said at a pro-Green New Deal news conference in front of the Capitol. "Why not let this be a measure of how great we are as a nation?"

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday that McConnell's "stunt is backfiring" and that it was becoming clear that "the Republican Party is way behind the times on clean energy."
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The main Senate sponsor of the Green New Deal, Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., was unapologetic about the broad scope of his proposal. "It is the national-security, economic, health care and moral issue of our time," he said at Tuesday's press event.