Editor:
New Mexico politicians flock to the leftist, socialist climate change bandwagon in order to make energy a political weapon.
In his May 12, 2019, Albuquerque Journal article, “We can, and must, curtail climate change,” U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján waxes nostalgic about 18-, 19- and 20-year-old activists in a House Select Committee meeting. The same week that Luján lamented the unseasonably warm Washington, D.C., day, the temperature in Albuquerque set an all-time record for the lowest daytime high temperature.
U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich in a July 10, 2019, Journal article, “Senator Heinrich pushes for bill on carbon pollution fee,” praises young students and activists.
It is interesting that they look to teenagers for their inspiration and motivation to sponsor legislation that is an existential economic threat. Why wouldn’t they rather seek true experts that have done genuine analyses before plundering our economy and undertaking irreversible and catastrophic energy changes?
Superlative analyses like “Physics and Technology for Future Presidents,” a text by Richard Muller, professor of physics, University of California, Berkeley, or “The Mythology of Global Warming: Climate Change Fiction Versus Scientific Fact,” by Bruce Bunker, Sandia National Labs (retired), would actually inform them scientifically. They would discover that “climate science” is far from settled.
For example, from 1998 through 2008 and the intervening decade, the warmest year was 1998 and the coolest was 2008 — hardly a warming trend. They might also discover that the oil industry has improved, sustained and saved billions of lives.
They love the 29-year-old U.S. representative’s Green New Deal and carbon-fee legislation, which are just enormous taxes on the middle class. The so-called carbon fee plus dividend legislation is really just a consumer tax.
The idea is to tax energy producers and stash the booty in an IRS trust fund. Dividends would be paid equally to U.S. residents (residents, not citizens).
Because New Mexico has less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, 99 cents of every dollar confiscated from New Mexico energy producers would be distributed to out-of-state residents. Does that sound like a good deal for New Mexico?
Luján now seeks to be a U.S. senator and, if elected, would join Heinrich in our senatorial delegation. Neither is economically adroit regarding climate science and energy policy.
George L. Wright
Corrales
