Letter: Create tax 'bridge' between gas prices and climate change

How to chart a course between the Scylla of high gas prices and the Charybdis of global warming?

While climate change is clearly the greater danger, high gas prices are hurting and concerning many Americans. So the federal government should pass a gas price compensation act where families and drivers are periodically given an amount appropriate for the rising price of gas.

This money could come from the U. S. treasury, a partial or full rollback of the Trump-Republican corporate tax cut - the largest in U.S. history - or an excess profits tax on oil companies unless they invested these profits in renewable energy.

This could be a bridge to a quickened rollout of electric vehicles which are cheaper to run than gas vehicles. Stepped up solar and wind projects could power these vehicles.

Incentives could be provided to locate solar panel and wind turbine factories in areas where fossil fuel production is declining and in other depressed rural, small city and inner city areas.

Electric and hybrid vehicles are a small percentage of new vehicle sales but these sales have been rising and could be accelerated with rebates. This would reduce gas demand and knock prices back to the usual range as the transition to electric vehicles continues.

Richard Barsanti

Western Springs