Letter: Carbon tax makes sense, and dollars

I don’t usually respond to published letters, but Steve Sontag’s carbon tax letter (Carbon tax doesn’t add up in the real world, Jan. 4) completely misrepresents the revenue neutral carbon tax (RNCT).

Anyone who takes the time to explore citizensclimatelobby.org will find that none of the revenue is directed to alternative energy. All net revenue goes to the people as an equal dividend. The RNCT relies on the energy market to respond to the price signal from a fee on carbon that accounts for “social costs” of fossil carbon that consumers are not presently paying. Carbon-free energy will have to compete with fossil energy.

Administrative costs should be much lower than Sontag suggests, as it just involves collecting the fee from the handful of companies that extract or import fossil fuel, divide the revenue by the number of residents in the nation, and distribute the dividends much like social security is distributed. The market signal drives carbon emissions down, the dividends spur the economy, and the border adjustment protects international trade. We can limit climate change.

Ask Congressman Newhouse to embrace the RNCT as a climate change solution we all can live with.

This story was originally published January 4, 2018 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Letter: Carbon tax makes sense, and dollars."