Mike Carran
On January 7 SaddleBrooke residents Verne Loose, Bob Wample and Mike Carran met with Congressman Tom O’Halleran to discuss climate change. Loose, Wample and Carran are all members of the SaddleBrooke Chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that lobbies to advance a plan to mitigate the worst effects of global climate change.
The group’s plan, called Carbon Fee and Dividend, utilizes free market principles to reduce carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. It does this by placing a fee on those emissions and then rebating the proceeds of that fee to the American public on a per capita basis. Extended economic analysis shows that carbon emissions would decline dramatically over 20 years to less than half of what they were in 1990. The plan would also place money in the hands of all Americans, reduce deaths from disease caused by air pollution and create a net gain of 2.8 million new jobs.
Representative O’Halleran listened carefully to the plan and agreed to study it in detail. He also agreed to join the House of Representatives Climate Solutions Caucus as soon as possible. This caucus, which currently has 66 members, has a requirement that the caucus be composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The caucus has as its goal finding ways to mitigate the harmful effects of an increasingly warming planet.
The SaddleBrooke Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby meets bimonthly in the Sonoran Room of SaddleBrooke TWO at 10:00 a.m. The next meeting will be on February 10, 2018. If you’d like to learn more about the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus, please join us.