Letter: If we could fix the climate for free, would we do it?
(J. David Ake | AP file photo) The Dave Johnson coal-fired power plant is silhouetted against the morning sun in Glenrock, Wyo., on July 27, 2018. Jeremy Grantham, a British billionaire investor who's a major contributor to environmental causes, will fund carbon-capture research in Wyoming, the top U.S. coal-mining state. Wyoming's Republican governor, Mark Gordon, and the carbon-capture technology nonprofit Carbontech Labs announced Thursday, March 28, 2019, they're providing $1.25 million to help researchers find ways to turn greenhouse-gas emissions into valuable products.
In her column “If even France can’t figure out a climate policy, what hope is there for the U.S.?” Catherine Rampell writes that instead of using a carbon tax to pay down the deficit, the French government “should have rebated the money to the public, most generously to those least able to absorb the tax (the poor) or reduce their carbon emissions (those in suburbs and rural areas).”
This describes the bipartisan Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 763). This is legislation that both liberals and conservatives can support. It fixes the climate for free. Congress should pass it ASAP.
Scott Leckman, Salt Lake City
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