Letter: Lobby legislation for carbon tax

Kudos to state Sen. Ann Rivers, R-La Center, for acknowledging the need for climate action while describing some plans’ drawbacks. Cap and trade cause rising prices. Administratively imposed regulations feel dictatorial and are inefficient.

Unfortunately, Rivers omitted an option that costs the public nothing, doesn’t involve administrative tyranny, is transparent and allows the free market to decide between hydro, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear and other non-emitting options. Henry Paulson, George W. Bush’s secretary of the Treasury, advocates for a carbon tax. Rivers omitted this option perhaps because it includes the word “tax.” If fossil-fuel producers pay a carbon tax on their fuels, the free market will develop alternative fuels to avoid the taxes.

If tax revenues are returned to the public in rebates, we’ll be protected from energy price increases.

A rebated carbon tax will reduce emissions. The public won’t suffer. Only fossil-fuel companies will suffer. Honestly, though, the only way to slow climate change is via lower emissions, which ultimately hurts fossil-fuel companies.

As for Rivers’ concern about China, Congress can make Chinese manufacturers pay our carbon tax until China enacts its own. Guess how long that will take.

I encourage Rivers to lobby Republican members of Washington’s congressional delegation to sponsor national carbon tax and rebate legislation.

For information on the many ways carbon taxes benefit the economy, contact Citizens’ Climate Lobby.

Judy Weiss

Brookline, Mass.