Thank you for your August 4th editorial supporting Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Although the headline (“Reversing Climate Change”) is highly misleading, the editorial generally gets it right. Action is urgent, this plan goes in the right direction and it will help with the negotiations for a world climate change treaty in Paris. The plan is flexible and will not kill the economy nor cause big rises in power cost.
Although Obama’s plan helps, there is a better and more aggressive approach available: a revenue-neutral carbon tax, which would tax oil, natural gas and coal at the point of production and return the proceeds to the population as equal per-capital checks. Such a market-based tax would impose no regulations and pick no winners and losers. It would just make fossil fuels appropriately more expensive. The proposal from the Citizens’ Climate Lobby would start at $15 per ton of CO2 and rise by $10 per ton each year. People who use less fossil fuels than the average would be better off from day 1. The reductions in fossil fuel use – all fossil fuel use,not just for electricity production – would be bigger than under Obama’s plan. This plan, also called “Fee and Dividend”, has been studied by economic experts who generally are very supportive.
The revenue-neutral carbon tax could be enacted on top of Obama’s plan. It would automatically achieve most of the goals of his plan, and more, and there would be no direct conflict.
—Doug Burke, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Oak Park
