Jody Strait: With a carbon fee and dividend, we can reach climate goals by 2030

Re “Questions on climate change bill” (Opinions, April 10): I appreciated the editorial board’s comments about Senate Bill 350, regarding goals for California’s response to climate change. The big question: how are Californians going to reduce petroleum use to 50 percent by 2030? The best answer: a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend (CFD).

Endorsed by Republicans such as President Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of State, George Shultz; former House Representative Bob Inglis; and George W. Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, the carbon fee and dividend is a non-partisan, market-based approach that will protect most consumers, minimize government regulation and reduce the entire nation’s emissions to half of 1990 levels by 2035. At the same time, it will stimulate the economy, incentivize renewable investment, create 2 million jobs in nine years and inadvertently save tens of thousands of lives from reduced pollution according, to a 2013 study by the well-respected economic modeling firm, Regional Economic Models, Inc.

I encourage the editorial board and anyone else interested to learn more at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby website, http://citizensclimatelobby.org/, or from the REMI report, www.remi.com/carbon-tax-study and pass on the message to their members of Congress.

This story was originally published April 13, 2015 at 2:55 PM with the headline "Jody Strait: With a carbon fee and dividend, we can reach climate goals by 2030."