Afghan refugees need our help, and other Tri-City Herald letters to the editor | Opinion

Act now to help Afghan refugees

After the fall of Kabul, thousands of Afghans who had risked their lives alongside American forces were evacuated to the United States. During the withdrawal from Kabul, the Biden administration authorized the use of humanitarian parole to temporarily expedite the entry of 80,000 Afghans to the United States and this humanitarian parole extends for only two years.

These 80,000 Afghans we evacuated will soon be subject to deportation unless Congress acts by adjusting their status. The Afghan Adjustment Act — a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation introduced this past August — aims to do just that. Astonishingly, it’s struggling to pass.

Without congressional action, the Afghans we evacuated to the United States may be deported in the coming year. U.S. law currently provides no straightforward path to permanent resettlement or reunification for these Afghans and their families. Many will be shoehorned into immigration processes not designed for their situation.

Please write to ask our Rep. Dan Newhouse and Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act to do right by these wartime allies. These people evacuated from Afghanistan by the U.S. are trying to make a new life in the U.S., while in immigration limbo and their time has run out.

Stan Moon, Richland

Op-ed was devoid of U.S. history

The Mansperger opinion in support of the pro-death option was presumptuous, replete with unsupported accusations and innuendo. It was proposed that the decision to abort need only be based on the inconvenience of the pregnancy. Leading to that conclusion was spurious rationale such as “tribal customs” inclusive of induced abortion and perhaps infanticide. Further, a heartbeat at five weeks is merely “neural firings.”

Such a treatise void of moral absolutes serves well the agenda to fundamentally change the basis on which the most successful society in the history of the world was founded.. When nations die, moral decay is always present, i.e., the rise of immorality, decay of religious belief and devaluing of human life. President Adams stated, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.” Atop the Washington Monument is the Latin phrase Praise be to God. Engraved above the head of the chief justice of the Supreme Court are the Ten Commandments. Moses is included among the great lawgivers on the marble sculpture on the court’s east portico.

We can only recover from such opinions and despotic university influences summarily manifest in the editorial treatise by divine intervention and return to our foundational strength.

Ron Hadley, West Richland

We need to adopt carbon pricing

Todd Meyers’ December 11 column on environmental policy distracts readers from what really drives global warming. Suggesting smart thermostats will save our climate is like saying you’ve adopted a healthy lifestyle by purchasing a smart scale.

Smart thermostats can help consumers save perhaps 10% on their heating bill, but miss out on replacing all of their natural gas use with an electric heat pump, water heater and induction range, or replacing their gas guzzling vehicle with an electric model. Transportation emits 28% of greenhouse gas emissions nationally. Heating buildings emits 12%.

But, even if a majority of consumers make such choices, emissions reductions would still be limited by emissions from utilities and industry (27% and 22% of U.S. emissions, respectively). A national price on carbon is needed to create market incentives that drive decarbonization of power, steel, concrete and fertilizer production. The revenue from a price on carbon can be returned to the people in equal carbon dividends, empowering them to choose low-carbon climate solutions.

Our nation’s climate policy is a mess because Congress hasn’t yet passed carbon pricing legislation. That doesn’t mean we should give up and distract ourselves with smart thermostats. Even Todd Meyers once supported carbon pricing.

Steve Ghan, Richland