Meeting with Elizabeth Kim at Alyson Huber's Office

Today I rode my bike to Rancho Cordova City Hall to meet with Elizabeth Kim, a member of Alyson Huber’s staff. Alysson Huber is the assemblywoman representing the 10th assembly district of California. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss the benefits of a carbon tax. The meeting went really well and I strongly believe that Elizabeth got the concept which is fairly straightforward. When a company produces a product, it is concerned about revenues and expenses. Only measurable costs are included in a P and L statement. Up until now, energy companies such as oil, coal and gas have been able to make enormous profits off of their energy products because they have been able to shift a significant portion of those costs onto the general public. What does this mean? Let’s take a look at coal for example. In strip mining, entire mountains are blown up and removed and heavy machinery is moved in to extract the coal. Once the coal is processed it is used to power utilities and other industries. When the coal is burned, Co2 is released into the air. When the Co2 reacts with H2o, carbonic acid is produced which is more commonly referred to as acid rain. When lakes and rivers become acidic, the fish and other life in the lake die off as oxygen becomes depleted. In addition, Co2 traps heat from the sun which in turn warms the atmosphere, aka global warming. Other chemicals are also released into the air during the burning of coal and find their way into our lungs.Each of these damaging effects either on the environment or our health represent a significant cost. The problem is that quantifying these costs is very difficult. In the absence of easily measurable costs, the fossil fuel industry can profit handsomely by avoiding responsibility and effectively shifting all of these costs onto the general public. This shifting of costs represents a massive subsidy of the fossil fuel industry. In effect, we are paying for part of the production costs of these energy sources. The central premise of my argument for a carbon tax is this: The environment represents a cost of doing business just like any other cost. If you rent a storage space, you have to pay for it. If you rent labor, you have to pay for it. And if you damage the environment during the production of your product, you alone should be responsible for it, not the public. That is what free enterprise is about. A carbon tax is the most effective way of quantifying the cost of "damaging" the environment. It is easy to implement, easy to monitor and encourages a shift away from fossil fuels without compromising jobs. In any case, Elizabeth was so impressed with my ideas, she invited me to meet with Assemblywoman Huber at the state capitol sometime in the future. We agreed that I would call her next week to find out Huber’s reaction to my ideas.