Thank you for your heartfelt editorial, "Climate change gets local," June 5, reflecting climate change becoming vividly local.
Republicans like Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas ought to read the Web pages of large oil and gas companies and talk to their top executives. They will find companies like ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips discuss climate change's serious risks and outline the criteria they think are essential for policy solutions. Most of their criteria point to a carbon tax, and, in fact, BP states that it appraises new projects assuming a price on carbon has been legislated.
Moreover, ExxonMobil considers the risks from climate change to be so severe that it is willing to go out on a limb and publicly support a carbon tax, adding: " ... to ensure revenues raised from such a tax are indeed directed to investment, and to assist those on lower incomes who spend a higher proportion of their income on energy, a carbon tax should be offset by tax reductions in other areas to become revenue neutral for government.
"It is rare that a business lends its support to new taxes. But in this case, given the risk-management challenges we face and the policy alternatives under consideration, it is our judgment that a carbon tax is a preferred course of public policy action versus cap and trade approaches."
Why won't Republicans give the oil and gas companies the climate change policy that they want and that economists from both the left and right say is the best policy?
Judy Weiss
Member of Citizens Climate Lobby, Brookline, Mass.