Letters to the Web Editor

Don’t look now, but your government is again going to debate something that if put before the people would never get the votes in an election to pass.

On June 2, S.3036, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security bill, came before the U.S. Senate. This bill, in an effort the stop “global warming,” will impose a “cap and trade” system putting caps on emissions for industry.

Although this is unlikely to pass this year, all three presidential candidates are in favor of some sort of cap and trade. Don’t get me wrong, I love clean air and water, and global warming may or may not be happening, but it has happened several times before on earth, and long before we had cars and factories.

I just think a new government program that could cost the American people money and jobs is not the answer. Cap and trade is basically a tax, the Congressional Budget Office estimates an emissions cut of 15 percent (well below the 70 percent this bill wants by 2050) could raise average household energy costs by almost $1,300 a year. Europe, which has already instituted cap and trade, has seen energy prices increase by four times.

This is another case of a certain group of people (environmentalists this time) deciding our policy, just like not letting us explore and drill for our own oil and gas reserves. This is an important issue, and I hope people will do some research on there own and pay attention to this and hopefully voice their opinion to their elected officials in Congress.

Sean Johnson
Jacksonville