Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezDem lawmaker rips opposition to Amazon going into New York: ‘Now we’re protesting jobs’ Reporter says majority appears to favor progressive tax plans Trump tweets video mocking Dems not cheering during State of the Union MORE (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed MarkeyEdward (Ed) John MarkeyGreen New Deal Resolution invites big picture governing We can have a Green New Deal, and air travel too 2020 Dem slams Green New Deal: As realistic as Trump’s claim that Mexico will pay for wall MORE (D-Mass.) introduced their resolution laying out the principles and rationale for a Green New Deal. As I’ve argued before, this is an overdue step to reorient our economy away from mining our children’s wealth and towards delivering true economic prosperity across the country.

Unsurprisingly, the same opponents who have fought change for the last 30 years seized on some communication missteps within a convoluted FAQ; once again, trying to characterize the transition away from wealth-destroying fossil fuels as the end of the world. Unfortunately, that has left us with a silly argument that the left wants to eliminate air travel.

As someone who’s been working on climate-friendly technologies for almost two decades, as committee staff in Congress and later in the major clean energy RD program of the Department of Energy (DOE), I can say it’s entirely possible for airplanes to fly without fossil fuels. In fact, we can make a carbon-neutral transportation system that not only protects our future but makes our lives better today.

Obviously, the Green New Deal resolution itself does not ban air travel. What it does is tip to many of the policies that are key to repairing our creaky transportation system. Yes, we can save a lot of time, extra flight miles and congestion by replacing short trips between hub cities like Boston and New York with electrified high-speed rail.

In fact, I suspect this was actually what one of the garbled FAQs about “eliminating stops” was aimed at. Not only does this eliminate emissions from a lot of inefficient flights (takeoffs are particularly energy intensive), but it speeds up air travel across the board, as well as potentially restoring regular service to now underserved cities that have lost out in recent years.

It’s also possible to improve shorter, specialty flights, such as to small regional airports, with hybrid electric planes. But batteries have to get much cheaper and much, much lighter before that will be more than a niche solution. The fact is, the energy density of liquid fuels is very difficult to match, which leads us to the most important and likeliest way to decarbonize aviation: Jet fuels derived from biomass.

The idea for renewable jet fuel has been an active area of research for the DOE. Last year yielded some of the most promising results so far, as DOE research partner LanzaTech provided their ethanol-derived jet fuel for a 747 test flight across the Atlantic. This fuel starts from ethanol, which can come from waste industrial gas or from carbon-removing biomass, which is then converted into a drop-in jet fuel. 

Their cleaner burning fuel is currently certified to be blended up to 50 percent with existing jet fuel and can dramatically cut fossil carbon emissions in today’s aircraft without any further advances. But, there’s no technological barrier to getting to 100 percent. We already produce 15 billion gallons of ethanol in the United States, so with a committed research and policy push (unfortunately happening much more in Europe than in the U.S. at the moment) it is easy to see how we can keep our current aviation system without adding any more fossil carbon to the atmosphere.

This, and the related technologies for renewable fuel replacements for long-haul trucking and international shipping, were all shown as viable in a multi-lab study from DOE a few years ago. In their scenarios, renewable biofuels played an enormous role providing fuels beyond consumer vehicles — making our farmers key players in restoring our natural wealth while cleaning and protecting our air. Thus, delivering the inclusive prosperity — with a big role for rural America — demanded by the Green New Deal and voters.

LanzaTech and others see the technology roadmap ahead. The question we need to ask ourselves is if we want them to do this work in the U.S. or let it move overseas where people are more seriously committed. In the end, this is what a Green New Deal is actually about. It’s about America doing what we all like to think it has always done — facing up to a real threat and leading the charge to address it. We have the technology, we just need the politicians to roll up their sleeves and get busy.

Like FDR’s New Deal, the Green New Deal is not policy, or even a collection of policies, it’s a commitment to sustained action and a framework for making sure the benefits of the clean energy transition come to every corner of the Country. No mangled FAQs or misspoken summaries will change this basic premise — because the alternative, continuing to let fossil fuel barons feather their nests with wealth stolen from our children — is unacceptable.

Mike Carr is executive director of New Energy America. He previously served as principal deputy assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and as senior counsel on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

This week in air travel news, a number of airlines have made major onboard product announcements. 

This week United Airlines announced plans to add more than 1,600 United Polaris and United First seats to nearly 250 international and domestic aircraft, as well as to introduce the two-cabin, 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 550 aircraft to its fleet. 

United said that, over the course of the next several weeks, it would begin introducing the first of its 21 reconfigured Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with 16 additional United Polaris business seats in the premium cabin, bringing the total cabin seat count to 46 and representing a more than 50 percent increase in all-aisle-access seating. The newly reconfigured 767s will also have 22 United Premium Plus seats, 47 Economy Plus seats and 52 Economy seats. The first reconfigured 767 will operate between Newark and London. 

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Starting early next year, United said it will add four United First seats to its fleet of nearly 100 Airbus A320 aircraft, increasing the total count from 12 to 16. The reconfigured aircraft will also feature 39 Economy Plus seats and 95 Economy seats. United expects to complete the reconfiguration of the Airbus A320 and A319s by the middle of next year.

Finally, by the end of this year, United says it expects to introduce 50 new 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 550 aircraft, which will offer customers more legroom and storage capacity, as well as the first first-class seating on a 50-seat aircraft. 

Also this week Air France released a first look at its new long-haul cabins, which will exclusively be available onboard its Airbus A330s. The new cabins will have a new Business Class seat that can convert into a lie-flat bed, as well as extra-wide HD touchscreens and a redesigned self-service bar. Premium Economy seats will also be upgraded with additional space, including a 130 degree seat recline in a fixed shell, lumbar support adapted to different body shapes, more storage space and a wider footrest. Economy seats will receive more space between the armrests, reinforced ergonomic foam and a larger tray table and touchscreen. 

The first flight equipped with these new cabins connecting Paris-Charles de Gaulle to Accra (Ghana) took off on February 3, 2019. All told, 15 aircraft will be redesigned by 2020. 

At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, this week Delta’s first A220 took flight. The new aircraft takes advantage of advanced technology and composite materials designed to deliver considerable improvements in fuel efficiency, and it is the airline’s latest investment in a fleet modernization program that aims to replace 20 percent of older, less-efficient aircraft by 2020.

Finally, in airport news, this week American Airlines and British Airways announced future plans to co-locate their operations in New York’s JFK Airport Terminal 8. American and British Airways will invest $344 million in Terminal 8 over the next three years to prepare for the co-location in 2022, with British Airways moving from its current operation in Terminal 7. 

This $344 million investment in Terminal 8 will include improvements in the overall customer experience, including the addition of five widebody gates and four adjacent widebody hard stands, enhanced baggage systems, new lounges, premium check-in space and upgraded concessions and retail options.

The two airlines said that the co-location will allow them to offer better service between New York and London and beyond, with customers arriving in New York being able to more conveniently connect onto other American Airlines flights and customers departing New York will gain the flexibility of 14 daily flights to London all departing from the same terminal.

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On top of mudslides, breached levees, flooding and traffic messes, this week’s storm — the strongest of the season — has also interrupted hundreds of flights at the Bay Area’s airports.

By 8:30 p.m. Friday, San Francisco International Airport reported 475 delays and 25 cancellations, airport duty manager Maria Buyco said.

The airport also enacted a ground delay program, where incoming flights are held at their departure airports, at 1:30 p.m. Friday that would impact afternoon and evening flights. Morgan said the ground delay was prompted by the weather. The average delays on Friday were about 90 minutes, Buyco said.

On Thursday, the airport saw 490 delays, ranging between one minute and two hours, and 123 cancellations. The canceled flights were mostly commuter planes departing from and landing on the West Coast, said airport duty manager Chris Morgan.

Mineta San Jose International Airport reported three cancellations Friday on outbound flights because of weather elsewhere, spokeswoman Rosemary Barnes said. The airport also received a diverted flight that was originaly scheduled to land at San Francisco International Airport, she said.

The airport, which has 250 commercial departures per day, had three cancellations on Thursday.

There were no canceled or delayed at Oakland International Airport on Friday.

Ashley McBride is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ashley.mcbride@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ashleynmcb

Presidential hopeful and Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Tuesday she will vote for the “Green New Deal” resolution when it comes up in the Senate but stressed that she doesn’t back some of the more extreme positions of some of its supporters, such as ending air travel.

“The ‘Green New Deal?’ I see it as, by the way, I see it as aspirational. I see it as a jumpstart,” said Klobuchar, D-Minn., during an interview Tuesday on Fox News. “I would vote yes, but I would also, if it got down to the nitty-gritty of an actual legislation as opposed to ‘Oh, here are goals we have,’ that would be different.”

Democrats offered conflicting views of the “Green New Deal” resolution to the public this week. The resolution itself called for a World War II-level mobilization to fight climate change and create millions of new jobs. But a summary found on the website of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., which was later taken down, said the goal was to make cows and air travel obsolete.

Klobuchar made it clear she doesn’t support going that far.

“I am for a jumpstart of the discussion and a framework, as Sen. Markey has described. I’m not for reducing air travel,” Klobuchar said.

Klobuchar spoke after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the resolution would be brought up for a vote, in an effort to put Democrats on the record on the controversial measure.

Klobuchar is one of the 11 Democratic co-sponsors of the resolution in the Senate.

The measure outlines a 10-year plan to reduce carbon emissions and replace fossil fuel with renewable energy. It also calls for “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” but Klobuchar said it was unlikely that there would be zero greenhouse gas emissions in the near future.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen in the next few years,” Klobuchar said. “You can imagine by new technology and by the way, that includes nuclear and everything else, that we could get to a better place.”

Instead, Klobuchar said she would like the U.S. to re-enter the international Paris climate agreement that President Trump announced the U.S. would no longer be a part of in 2017.

“I would like to see is on day one to get back into the international climate change agreement. We are the only country not in it,” Klobuchar said. “I would like to see us put in place those clean power rules again that would bring us a 30 percent reduction. I think those are doable things that we’ve worked on.”

It is unclear when the Senate will vote on the “Green New Deal” resolution.

(Adds details of results, background)

Feb 14 (Reuters) – Panama’s Copa Holdings expects demand for flights in Argentina and Brazil to remain weak in 2019, executives said on Thursday during a presentation on its earnings, which showed its profit in 2018 had slumped 75 percent to $88 million.

Copa’s results were significantly affected by a $190 million writeoff as the company decided to phase out its fleet of 19 Embraer planes. The planes will gradually be replaced by Boeing aircraft.

Still, even without that charge, profits would have dropped 25 percent in 2018 from a year earlier.

Other factors that impacted the results of Copa, which flies only to destinations in the Americas, were high oil prices for much of the year, and weak currencies that plagued Brazil and Argentina, two of the region’s most important markets.

Executives said on a conference call with analysts that ticket sales were particularly hard hit in Argentina, where they tumbled 40 percent in 2018 as the South American nation faced a deep recession. (Reporting by Marcelo Rochabrun Editing by Bernadette Baum)

The 19th century French photographer known as Nadar was quite an enterprising fellow. He started out as a sketch artist and once set some sort of record for the number of tiny sketches he could get on one page: 250 in all. Magnifying glasses in Paris must have sold out.

But Nadar didn’t stop there. In time he became interested in traveling by hot air balloon. First, he went up by himself and marveled at the view. He said it gave him a serene perspective on life and removed him from all the evil vanities of human endeavor.

But I wonder what he’d have made of contemporary airline travel. It hardly detaches us from the evil vanities of human endeavor. I’m often seated next to a self-important businessman wearing Gucci shoes, adding up multiple figures on his expensive tablet. Or I’m seated next to someone who slurps her drink while I’m trying to sleep. And then there are those who barely have any clothes on, save a pair of shorts and a sleeveless t-shirt: no doubt would-be, stuck-up body builders.

Even Nadar went on to spoil his airborne experience. He oversaw the building of a vehicle that would hold nine people, with separate compartments and even a wine cellar. It drifted over four hundred miles away from Paris and came down suddenly in Hanover, injuring several of the passengers. Nadar grew tired of being up there by himself and sought company. This was a mistake. Ballooning should be meditation, not transportation. That’s the only way to get the evil out.

This is Tom McBride, and that’s my Perspective.

Ian Ryder, vice president strategy management, Air Travel Solutions, SITA, gives three examples of promising developments all centered around technology-enabled collaboration.

We all know that the air transportation industry’s complex ecosystem is built on collaboration. Without its many stakeholders working in unison, we’d simply not be able to travel and fly the way we do. Emerging technologies now promise to enable collaboration in new and increasingly effective ways.

With the plethora of systems, applications and high data volumes involved in making the journey happen, technology already underpins air travel. Whether that’s to create a more seamless journey for the passenger, or to ensure efficient interaction between industry players, technology lies at the core of our industry.

It’s estimated that at least 20 stakeholder organizations can be involved in making the journey happen. Turning around an aircraft, for example, requires close teamwork and IT systems across airport operations, aircraft operations and air traffic control. Working with them are many other stakeholders, all coordinating with crew on the aircraft, the crew handling baggage and cargo, and the teams involved in the aircraft’s replenishment, engineering and technology processes.

A growing industry, a growing IT dependence
It will be essential for technology-enabled collaboration to bring vital changes to our industry’s processes if we’re going to cope with double the volume of air travel by 2037, as well as new business models for airlines and airports and ever higher passenger expectations. Let me give you three examples of promising developments all centered around collaboration.

1. At the airport: shared awareness and coordinated action
The first is at the airport. One way we can achieve shared awareness and coordinated action among airline and airport stakeholders is through a concept called ‘digital twins.’

This is where real-time industry data harvested from sensors on the aircraft and on the ground are combined with other industry data sources to enable a digital model of the real world at the airport to be created. This holistic digital airport model is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). Across the airport, stakeholders can interact with visual representations of the model using devices appropriate to their needs, such as a HoloLens to explore the airport overall, or a wrist device for workers on the ramp.

Thanks to AI, the model can highlight what issues need addressing right now and predict what’s coming in terms of queue lengths, passenger movements, aircraft turnarounds and so on. This will enable quick and effective collaborative decision making. Digital twins could eventually become the universal interface and ‘collaboration space’ for stakeholders working together to keep the airport operating at maximum efficiency, or responding to incidents in real time.

2. For the aircraft: getting data into the right hands
Then there’s the potential for better collaboration around the ‘digital aircraft’. Of the 43,000 commercial aircraft flying in 2034, 85% will be new generation, churning out high volumes of telemetry and data that needs to be understood. Such an aircraft today might generate at least 500GB of data during a flight, but in the future, we’ll be counting in terabytes.

With the arrival of the IoT and intelligent digital devices, aircraft data will be available to feed new analytics and services. These will reduce costs, drive efficiencies, increase aircraft utilization and improve services for passengers, giving them confidence in schedules.

For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), this growing stream of data is vital in helping them to improve the performance of their aircraft. The challenge is getting the right data to OEMs so they can create value from it. It needs to come from many different types of aircraft; it must be collected, aggregated, cleansed, and then appropriately shared.

This is the rationale behind SITAOnAir’s e-Aircraft DataHub. Focusing on data accuracy, timing and simplification, this service acts as a trusted industry data brokerage to enable better collaboration around the aircraft and its processes.

3. Data sharing: we need a single version of the truth
My third example concerns the accuracy and consistency of shared data, be it airport operational data, passenger or baggage data. The problem is, multiple versions of the truth may exist. An airline might estimate when a flight will arrive; an airport may do the same. Having determined the times separately, those times may differ. When the aircraft actually arrives, multiple parties may again register that event slightly differently. This means duplication of effort, inconsistency and inaccuracy and it impacts both operational efficiency and the quality of service provided to passengers.

As demonstrated by SITA Lab with its FlightChain project, blockchain looks set to play a critical role. Using smart contracts with blockchain, stakeholders can determine who’s allowed to update the blockchain, which enables a sharable single version of the truth. IAG provided a real-world use case, using blockchain and working with SITA to provide authoritative shared flight status information. IAG’s Harvey Tate refers to ‘many sources’ and ‘filter failure’ in determining usable information. He believes that with accuracy around flight status or flight arrival times, for example, there are valuable use cases based on that information, such as rebooking services and providing directions to passengers.

Better collaboration is the key to air travel’s future
Examples like these illustrate how better collaboration can be achieved so we can cope with industry growth. Technology will be an enabler, but we need to work together to identify and exploit the use cases that will be critical to our progress. In doing this, we must keep an eye on Gartner’s Hype Cycle, as we want to base our use cases on stable and deployable technology. And we must remember that all of the collaboration discussed here feeds off one thing – data. Collaboration is about trusted sharing of data.

A final word of advice: if you want to embark a project involving technology-enabled collaboration, work with your stakeholders, and with an experienced IT provider. Start by identifying where collaboration is critical in your organization, focus initially on areas where change is easiest and involve a small number of actively engaged stakeholders, talk to the players involved, and brainstorm how you can improve.

Marijuana legalization means you can get high — really high — with your cannabis.

Once the target of drug-sniffing dogs, cannabis is now allowed in both checked and carry-on luggage for air travellers.

But, as with many other allowed items, there are limits.

Christine Langlois, spokesperson for Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA), was in Regina on Wednesday to provide a reminder about security rules, given the upcoming school break often leads to increased air travel.

“Keep in mind that it remains illegal to cross international borders with cannabis,” she said. “Whether you go out of Canada or you come in, it’s illegal to cross international borders. If you want to fly domestically, it’s allowed. You’re allowed to have up to 30 grams of recreational cannabis. It’s roughly the size of a sandwich bag, a clear sandwich bag. And if it’s medical, then you’re allowed to have up to 150 (grams), however make sure you have your medical documentation with you.”

Langlois reminded would-be travellers that it’s up to them to ensure they are obeying provincial legislation in relation to cannabis prior to reaching the airport.

“I think it’s the responsibility of people to know what are the rules exactly in the province they’re in,” she said. “For us, what we’re concerned about is that when you come (to) the airport, those are the limits, the legal limits. But what we really want people to remember about cannabis is to not cross international borders with it.”

As cannabis is considered an allowed item, there is no specific way to pack it. Langlois said it does not need to be in its original packaging; a sandwich bag will suffice.

And while security officials are unlikely to weigh each bag of cannabis, travellers are advised to ensure they are at or under the allowed amount.

“If it looks to be possibly more than the legal limit then, yes, we would call the police as per procedure,” she said.

So far, she said CATSA has not noted a significant impact on operations since the legalization of cannabis in October.

Regulations on other items remain in place. While larger amounts are allowed in checked baggage, liquids, gels and inorganic powders (salts, bath salts, and even hand warmers) must be within specified limits to be taken in carry-on bags. For liquids and gels, that’s 100 millilitres or less per container, with all fitting together inside a small, clear plastic bag. For inorganic powders, the limit is 350 ml, the approximate equivalent of a soda can.

CATSA has additional information available on its website or on its app. Langlois said the app also contains information about wait times at security checkpoints at 14 Canadian airports, including Regina.

Despite all its best efforts at educating the public on what not to bring, some travellers continue to push the limits. Just last week in Regina, security seized numerous items, including what’s known as a credit card knife (a blade concealed within a credit card-sized case) and a trio of throwing stars. Langlois said the throwing stars will be handed over to police.

hpolischuk@postmedia.com

twitter.com/LPHeatherP

Salvador Rizzo

“I would just say that it’s going to be crucially important for us to recognize and understand when we outlaw plane travel, we outlaw gasoline, we outlaw cars, I think actually probably the entire U.S. military, because of the Green New Deal, that we are able to explain to our constituents and to people all across this country what that really means. And even when it comes down to something like air travel, which the FAQs say they want to eliminate within the next 10 years, that means the government is going to be telling people where they can fly to and where they can’t. And I would assume, I guess, that means our colleagues from California are going to be riding their bicycles back home to their constituents.”

— Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), during a hearing of the House Energy and Mineral Resources subcommittee, Feb. 12, 2019

The Green New Deal from Democrats is packed with ambitious goals such as guaranteeing a job to everyone, “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States,” providing “high-quality health care” and higher education for all, “meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources,” and other sweeping provisions.

All of this in 10 years and without defined sources of funding, according to the Green New Deal resolution in Congress.

Put it all together and there’s no shortage of questions about the resolution and its pie-in-the-sky approach. Republicans, however, have zeroed in on accompanying documents that were never part of the resolution and that were retracted on Feb. 9 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the Green New Deal.

President Trump said at a rally in El Paso on Feb. 11, “I really don’t like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane flights . . . of, ‘You’re not allowed to own cows anymore.’” In a tweet on Feb. 12, the campaign for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said, “We’re going to vote in the Senate and see how many Democrats want to end air travel and cow farts.”

Cheney, who chairs the GOP conference in the House, went the furthest during a congressional hearing Feb. 12. She claimed the Democrats’ plan would “eliminate” air travel or leave the government to decide for people “where they can fly to and where they can’t.” It wouldn’t be feasible to stop flying patients with life-threatening illnesses, Cheney said, so decisions that prioritize some flight plans over others would be needed.

“Would you say that we’re going to have some sort of a ‘vacation commissar’ set up in the government to determine what kind of air travel makes sense and what kind doesn’t?” Cheney asked one witness. (It reminds us of the claim that the Affordable Care Act would institute “death panels” deciding who lives and dies. This was PolitiFact’s “lie of the year” in 2009.)

The resolution doesn’t mention airplanes or cows at all; it certainly doesn’t ban flights or farts. As we’ve reported, these attacks are based on “frequently asked questions” documents that were released and then retracted by Ocasio-Cortez’s staff. But Cheney has added a new twist about “vacation commissars.” There’s nothing in the resolution regulating who can take an airplane and who cannot. Let’s take a look.

The Facts

Whether it passes or not, the Green New Deal resolution is nonbinding and unenforceable. It’s a broad statement of policy priorities. Democratic sponsors intend to use it as a blueprint for a formal legislative proposal down the road.

Still, nothing in the resolution would “outlaw” plane travel, cars, gasoline or the U.S. military, as Cheney posited. Accomplishing some of the goals in the Green New Deal undoubtedly would affect the industries and services she mentioned, but it’s inaccurate to say the Green New Deal would “outlaw” them. The plan calls for “meeting 100 percent of the power demand” with clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources. It should be noted that some key provisions in the Green New Deal call only for “technologically feasible” changes.

Getting down to brass tacks, the resolution calls for “overhauling transportation systems in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in — (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transportation; and (iii) high-speed rail.” That’s all it says about transportation; there’s no mention of air travel.

The resolution calls for “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to eliminate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible.” No cows are passing gas in this provision.

So how did we end up with all this talk about cows farting on airplanes?

As part of the resolution’s rollout, Ocasio-Cortez’s office released some accompanying documents, or FAQs, with sweeping statements that went beyond the terms of the resolution itself. Fox News commentators and Republicans were quick to mock these pronouncements. Some Democratic presidential contenders who had endorsed the Green New Deal started to distance themselves from the further-reaching language in Ocasio-Cortez’s FAQs.

One version of the FAQ called for building “high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” This line went beyond the terms of the resolution, which calls for high-speed rail investments but doesn’t mention airplanes or air travel.

Back to Cheney. She entered this FAQ into the congressional record at the hearing Tuesday and at one point said “when it comes down to something like air travel, which the FAQs say they want to eliminate within the next 10 years.” But the FAQ did not call for eliminating air travel within the next 10 years. It was more muddled on this point.

The FAQ called for “high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.” Another sentence read, “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.” (Emphasis ours.)

These statements envisioned a scenario “where air travel stops becoming necessary” and also “fully” getting rid of airplanes. However, it’s important to read the latter answer in context. It was part of an explanation of why the Green New Deal left room for some greenhouse-gas emissions rather than totally eliminating them over 10 years. The FAQ writers were saying that, as a practical matter, they would not be able to end air travel or bovine flatulence within the Green New Deal’s 10-year time frame.

Read in full and in context, these statements are not a definitive call for ending air travel or cow emissions. There’s an implied concern with ending air travel someday after the 10-year horizon. But this language was never in the resolution itself, and in any case, these FAQ documents and the statements therein were retracted days before Cheney made her comments on Tuesday.

Cheney’s office also pointed out language in the FAQ about replacing “every combustion-engine vehicle” and making “a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases,” which, by extension, would end jet fuel and nonelectric cars. These phrases did not end up in the resolution, either.

Contrast this line of attack from Cheney with these critical comments about the Green New Deal from acting Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler. “I’ve read the resolution that they put out. I’ve also read the fact sheet that they later disavowed. I’d say probably the rollout was not really ready for prime time,” he told ABC News. “But, I am concerned that they really don’t seem to value a stable electricity source, grid reliability and for human health and the environment here at the agency, I have to be very concerned about that because it’s the electricity system that supplies our drinking water system that runs it.”

Wheeler carefully distinguishes between the resolution and the retracted documents and criticizes the plan based on what’s actually in it.

High-speed rail would become an airplane alternative for some travelers under the terms of the Green New Deal, but it wouldn’t end commercial air travel. Some travelers may prefer flights over high-speed rail. And many would have no choice.

“Short-distance air travel could in theory be electrified, but there is no known way to fly direct from San Francisco to Sydney without aviation fuels,” said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science. “Every other form of energy storage is either too heavy or takes up too much space.”

Burning through jet fuel releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These emissions are a relatively small share of the total, but they are projected to keep rising amid growth in the airline industry. In 2013, U.S. aircraft accounted for 0.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, the EPA said in 2015. Caldeira said aviation from all countries accounts for 0.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, or 2 percent of the global total, citing a 2018 study in the journal Science.

Meanwhile, domestic cars and trucks accounted for 83 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion between 1990 and 2013, according to the EPA. For commercial aircraft, the figure was 7 percent.

In the same 23-year period, emissions from passenger cars and light-duty trucks increased 8 percent while emissions for medium- and heavy-duty trucks rose 71 percent.

Total aircraft emissions declined as manufacturers began to use lighter materials and build better engines, although emissions from commercial flights rose 4 percent. “Across all categories of aviation, excluding international bunkers, CO2 emissions decreased by 21 percent (38.7 MMT CO2) between 1990 and 2013,” according to the EPA report. “This includes a 69 percent (24.0 MMT CO2) decrease in CO2 emissions from domestic military operations.”

Moving on to cows. They represent a significant share of greenhouse-gas emissions. There’s no safe way to prevent cows from heeding the call of nature, although some researchers are trying to mitigate the large volume of methane gas cows expel by mixing seaweed into their diets or tinkering with genetics. According to the United Nations, livestock farming accounts for up to 18 percent of emissions that contribute to global warming, nearly a quarter of which is just cows being gassy.

The offending methane gas is “more burps than farts,” though.

“The burps for the cows — it is more burps than farts — contribute about . . . 4 percent of [all] greenhouse gas emissions,” Anne Mottet, livestock development officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, told Reuters in October.

Far bigger questions than cows and airplanes quickly come to the fore here: How do you retrofit every building in the United States? How do you curb emissions from vehicles on the ground? How do you guarantee jobs for everyone in the United States? The improbable prospect of ending all air travel, something that would never fly with American consumers, seems like a distraction from the real questions at hand.

The Pinocchio Test

Cheney conjured up an apocalyptic vision of life under the Green New Deal: Outlawed cars, outlawed gasoline, outlawed plane travel and even possibly no military and a roster of “vacation commissars.” Even allowing for political rhetoric, there’s very little to support these claims.

In reality, the Green New Deal resolution has no teeth and wouldn’t become law if it passed. So these claims are based on a retracted FAQ about a nonbinding resolution. In these documents, proponents of the Green New Deal mused about ending air travel and stopping cows from passing gas. Problematic as those lines were, none made it into the resolution.

Moreover, the FAQ was discarded days before Cheney brought it up at a House hearing to raise the specter of some government bureaucrat deciding whether you can board a flight. There’s nothing like this at all in the plan, not in the resolution and not in the retracted FAQs.

Cheney goes further than many of her Republican peers and earns Three Pinocchios. We were tempted to make it Four Pinocchios, given Cheney’s line about “vacation commissars,” but the ineptitude of the Ocasio-Cortez staff certainly gave Republicans a lot of material for these attacks.

Three Pinocchios

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Let Democrats have their way, U.S. President Donald Trump suggested, and the United States will become a country without border security, airplanes or cows.

Trump warned of a variety of dire consequences from the Democratic playbook as he rallied Monday night in the border city of El Paso, Texas, in a hall where banners proclaimed “Finish the Wall” even though he barely has a start on the one he promised.

READ MORE: Trump on Virginia governor’s blackface controversy, ‘I like him, keeps us out of the papers’

Both at the White House and in El Paso, he presented the border wall as a work in progress, hailing the start of a “big, big portion” with much more coming soon. It was a hefty exaggeration from a president who has yet to see an extra mile of barrier completed since he took office.

With another government shutdown looming — a tentative agreement reached by lawmakers Monday could avert it — and illegal immigration still at the heart of the budget dispute, Trump is pulling out the stops to portray his proposed wall as an answer to crime and drugs. As he’s done repeatedly, Trump also defied the record in claiming that the wall that Congress has refused to pay for is rapidly coming together anyway.

In the course of the evening, he also took a swipe at the Green New Deal, a sweeping plan put forward by a group of Democrats last week to transform the U.S. economy to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy. This is where gaseous cows come into it.

WATCH: Trump criticizes Virginia governor for blackface incident, stance on abortion

A look at his remarks:

TRUMP, on the effects of the Green New Deal: “You’re not allowed to own cows anymore.” He added that the plan would “shut down American energy” and “a little thing called air travel.”

THE FACTS: The Democratic plan would do none of those things. Trump chose to ignore the actual provisions of the plan, which calls for a drastic drop in emissions from methane-generating cows, air travel and more but would not ban cattle ownership or flights.

WATCH: Democrats outline ‘Green New Deal’ to tackle climate change, create renewable energy jobs

Instead, Trump took his cue from a FAQ that was distributed by the office of Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York last week, then clumsily disavowed by her and replaced with a more accurate summary of the plan.

The first version described measures beyond those contained in the plan and made the impolitic statement: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

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TRUMP, on the effect of a border wall on crime in El Paso: “When that wall went up, it’s a whole different ball game. … I don’t care whether a mayor is a Republican or a Democrat. They’re full of crap when they say it hasn’t made a big difference. I heard the same thing from the fake news. They said, ‘Oh crime, it actually stayed the same.’ It didn’t stay the same. It went way down. … Thanks to a powerful border wall in El Paso, Texas, it’s one of America’s safest cities now.”

THE FACT: Trump falsely suggests a dramatic drop in crime in

READ MORE:
U.S. lawmakers to revive talks on border security as 2nd shutdown looms

El Paso due to a border wall. In fact, the city’s murder rate was less than half the national average in 2005, the year before the start of its border fence. It’s true that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report shows that El Paso’s annual number of reported violent crimes dropped from nearly 5,000 in 1995 to around 2,700 in 2016. But that corresponded with similar declines in violent crime nationwide and included periods when the city’s crime rates increased year over year, despite new fencing and walls.

Before the wall project started, El Paso had been rated one of the three safest major U.S. cities going back to 1997.

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TRUMP, on his proposed wall: “We’ve built a lot of it.”

TRUMP: “We’ve actually started a big, big portion of the wall today at a very important location, and it’s going to go up pretty quickly over the next nine months. That whole area will be finished. It’s fully funded … and we’re going to have a lot of wall being built over the next period of time.”

THE FACTS: There’s less going on here than his words convey. Construction is getting started on merely 23 kilometres of an extended barrier, approved by Congress about a year ago in an appropriation that also authorized money to renovate and strengthen some existing fencing. The extension will be in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. That’s not a “big, big portion” of the grand project he promised in his campaign and countless times since — a wall that, combined with existing fencing and natural barriers, would seal the nearly 3,200-kilometre border with Mexico.

WATCH: Trump supporters stage a ‘human wall’ at U.S.-Mexico border

The recent fight with Democrats in Congress has been over his demand for a $5.7 billion down payment on the wall. That money would pay for a little over 320 kilometres of new barrier. Democrats have refused to approve anything close to that for extended barrier construction.

Trump also promised in the campaign that he would make Mexico pay for the wall, which it refused to do.

He inherited over 1,050 kilometres of border barrier from previous administrations.

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TRUMP, on preparations for his rally: “We have a line that is very long already. I mean, you see what’s going on. And I understand our competitor’s got a line, too, but it’s a tiny little line.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true. His comment came about four hours before his El Paso rally and a competing one nearby, led by Beto O’Rourke, a prospective Democratic presidential contender. The gathering for both events was small at the time. People were standing around in a dusty wind, not so much lined up.

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TRUMP, addressing El Paso rally: “He has 200 people, 300 people, not too good. … That may be the end of his presidential bid.”

THE FACTS: That’s not true, either. O’Rourke’s march and rally drew thousands. Police did not give an estimate, but his crowd filled up nearly all of a baseball field from the stage at the infield to the edge of outfield and was tightly packed.

WATCH: Trump says Beto O’Rourke ‘suffered a great defeat’

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TRUMP: “Drugs pouring through the border kills tens of thousands of innocent Americans a year, including heroin, meth, cocaine, fentanyl, so many others — they come through the southern border. We have a drug problem over the last 6, 7, 10 years like we have never had before. We can have such a big cut in the numbers, the percentages if we get the wall built.”

THE FACTS: His assertion that a wall would stop most drugs from “pouring” into the U.S. runs counter to his government’s findings on how the illegal substances get in. Most of it is smuggled through official border crossings, not remote stretches of the border.

FACT CHECK: Findings dispute Trump’s claim border wall will prevent drug smuggling

The Drug Enforcement Administration says “only a small percentage” of heroin seized by U.S. authorities comes across on territory between ports of entry. The same is true of drugs generally, with the exception of marijuana.

In a 2018 report, the agency said the most common trafficking technique by transnational criminal organizations is to hide drugs in passenger vehicles or tractor-trailers as they drive into the U.S. through entry ports, where they are stopped and subject to inspection. They also employ buses, cargo trains and tunnels, the report says, citing other smuggling methods that also would not be choked off by a border wall.

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TRUMP: “Illegal immigration hurts all Americans, including millions of legal immigrants, by driving down wages, draining public resources and claiming countless innocent lives.”

THE FACTS: These assertions are unsupported by research, which Trump appeared to acknowledge obliquely by making a crack about “phoney stats.”

The weight of research on wages suggests that immigrants have not suppressed them, although it’s not cut and dried. What’s clear is that macro forces that go beyond immigration are at work in the sluggishness of wage growth: the decline in unionization, an intensified push to maximize corporate profits, growing health insurance costs that supplant wages and the rise of a lower-wage global labour force that in an intertwined worldwide economy can hinder pay growth for Americans.

WATCH: Trump claims border wall only way to prevent illegal immigration

On public resources, the National Academy of Sciences concluded: “An immigrant and a native-born person with similar characteristics will likely have the same fiscal impact.” The academy found that because state and local governments supply most of the money for public schools, immigrants often receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. But education produces children who grow into adults who get jobs, buy cars, buy houses and pay taxes and thereby contribute to economic growth. And succeeding generations of immigrant families become net contributors to government budgets, according to the study.

On the loss of lives, plenty of research challenges the assumption that people in the country illegally drive up violent crime. In one such study, sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller reviewed crime in every state and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2014. They found that a rising number of immigrants in the country illegally corresponded with a drop, not a rise, in reported crime.

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TRUMP: “We’re going to El Paso. … We’re going there to keep our country safe, and we don’t want murderers and drug dealers and gang members, MS-13, and some of the worst people in the world coming into our country. … We need a wall.”

READ MORE:
Trump claims to have ‘liberated towns’ in Long Island from MS-13 gangs

THE FACTS: Trump suggests that weak border enforcement is contributing to vicious crime committed by MS-13, a gang held responsible for murders in cities across the U.S. But sealing the border completely would not eliminate the gang. It was founded in the U.S. in the 1980s by Salvadoran immigrants and has sunk roots in the country. Some of its members are U.S. citizens and not subject to deportation or border enforcement.

The government has not said recently how many members it thinks are citizens and immigrants. In notable raids on MS-13 in 2015 and 2016, most of the people caught were found to be U.S. citizens.