The Green New Deal (GND) is summarized here (Americans for Tax Reform).   I note only the 8th-grade naivete ringing in “Build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary.”  1) Why not ‘Build’ instead of ‘Build out’?  2) ” . . . where air travels stops becoming necessary”.  What is the ‘becoming’?  Is air travel necessity increasing so much that, barring GND, air capacity has to expand enormously?

Airlines travel at 460 – 575 mph. Not over every mile, nor every flight, but I am sure that these speeds are typical for transcontinental flights.  How fast can trains go?  Per Wikipedia, Extensive trials using the Fastech 360 test trains have shown that operation at 360 km/h (224 mph) is not currently feasible because of problems of noise pollution (particularly tunnel boom), overhead wire wear, and braking distances.   So NY to SF, 3000 miles, would take AT LEAST fifteen hours, assuming the train would never stop.  So air travel will always be a necessity.