PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 25, 2021
Signs of hope for U.S. climate solutions have recently arrived. Businessman Andy Karsner was elected to ExxonMobil’s board. He understands that for the company to survive, it will have to reimagine itself as a clean-energy operation. Like Karsner, Fareed Zakaria in his Sunday CNN commentary supported putting an economy-wide price on what we want less of: carbon pollution. Simple common sense like this would incentivize businesses to find their own innovative solutions, better than having the government pick winners and losers with piecemeal government regulation likely to be challenged in the courts. Sen. Angus King expressed concern to constituents that any carbon tax must be robust enough to quickly reduce emissions, and spoke favorably of returning all the money collected equally to Americans, ensuring fair treatment of low-income folks and making the policy durable, because most of us would come out ahead. ~ Sam Saltonstall, Brunswick