Dear Governor:
Meeting regularly, we are friends and neighbors in the Mad River Valley who try to improve our community and the universe.
We admired your public comments recognizing the effect of human activity on the climate yet wondered about your reputed dismissal of a carbon pollution tax-cum-dividend discussed at the four public hearings throughout the state. Could this have been a hasty but unpondered use of the Republican mantra “No more taxes”?
Obviously, Vermont prices for fossil fuels would increase – the most effective method to reduce consumption and to improve the air we breathe.
But the revenue from fossil fuel imports would compensate most Vermonters via subsidies to alternate energy generation, to home insulation, to electric means of transportation – all of which increase jobs and business activity within the state. In tune with this worldwide trend, China has announced the prohibition of gasoline-powered cars after 2020 and Volvo expects to produce only all-electric or hybrid cars as of 2021.
At the September 13 hearing in St. Johnsbury, the testimony from the 45 or so attendees was heavily in favor of the carbon pollution tax with similar results in the other three venues. As William Thwing apprised, your representative at the September 11 meeting in Manchester, British Columbia will increase its current tax on carbon to $21 per ton in 2021 and is now experiencing a clean energy boom in the province.
Will you reconsider your position on this vital issue?
Sincerely,
Carol Crossman, Warren; Jim McCaffrey, Fayston; Alan Uris, Waitsfield; Arthur Trezise, Fayston; Judy Larson DiMario, Fayston; Dotty Kyle, Warren; and Eric Brattstrom, Warren.
