PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • September 27, 2021
The $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package hangs by a thread. Failure to enact the legislation would be a lost opportunity to invest significantly in the health, education and quality of life of many Americans. Failure will squander the only opportunity in the foreseeable future to mitigate decisively the greenhouse gas emissions which cause climate change. Delay will impose huge damages on future generations from worsened climate or will make the ultimately necessary steps to mitigate even more expensive. For these reasons, we must enact the core of the package, and it must contain ambitious measures to reduce and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The key to both goals is one simple but powerful policy: a price on carbon. ~ Michael Jones, retired economist, Brunswick