Is Rep. Scott Tipton being influenced by the gas and oil industry to make such a blatant and careless error? Does he think that his constituents are not paying attention?

The gas and oil companies make plenty of money selling the dirty energy that they are capturing, so asking them to “step it up” and cap the leaks is just common sense. I acknowledge that most gas companies are quite diligent about this already. The ones that are careless must be making so much money that they feel the increased revenue from capturing these gases is not worth the cost or effort.

This is a perfect example as to why our country must adopt a revenue neutral carbon fee. The fees would be imposed upon the industry at the point of extraction. Those fees would then be equally distributed back to the public to compensate for the increased prices in goods and services. Everyone would benefit in the long run. In the short run, we all would learn how to be better stewards of our planet by learning through market economics that there are alternatives to fossil fuels.

Check out the website and the benefits of the aforementioned proposal at http://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/.

Louise van Vonno

Durango