Letter to the editor: Carbon emissions tax will hurt consumers

So letter-writer Bruce Cooper (“Biden’s climate order is not enough,” Dec. 21, TribLIVE) wants to tax carbon emissions at $20 per ton. Have you, Mr. Cooper, considered who will ultimately pay that tax? It’s not the utilities or the petroleum companies. They will simply pass along the added cost to the consumers of their product. Granted, not all state utility commissions will allow that, but most will so that they don’t drive the utilities out of business. And since the petroleum companies are privately owned, they can set their own prices, which would rise due to this tax.

Meanwhile, isn’t carbon emissions a worldwide problem? China and India more than double our carbon emissions, yet they continue to build coal-fired power plants. If this is such a “climate emergency,” why do they get a pass?

The bottom line is that we are nowhere close to having the ability to produce the power required to run this country without burning coal and gas. If this $20-per-ton regressive tax is enacted, it will be paid for mostly by those who can least afford it.

Ralph Dunsworth

Oviedo, Fla.