Bush Energy Pledge Goes Up in Smoke

* When President Bush abandoned his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions at energy plants (March 14), he claimed that he did so to prevent consumers from facing higher energy costs. In truth, he was just paying off the energy producers who contributed heavily to his campaign.

Bush should know that pollution creates its own costs. The problem is that those costs are borne by everyone in the community regardless of their relationship to the pollution source. Even those who are “off the grid” pay the cost of pollution. By contrast, regulating emissions places the burden on the producers and on the consumers. The former are simply made to internalize costs, while the latter are provided with an incentive to reduce their consumption. The resultant cleaner air and improved efficiency would benefit us all for a long time to come.

DAVID HOLLAND

Northridge

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Bush claims he is being careful not to “harm consumers” by abandoning his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. But who exactly are the “consumers” being protected here? Obviously not members of the public, who will suffer as the planet heats up, biodiversity is lost and human health compromised by greater pollution. By “consumers,” Bush is obviously referring to energy industry moneymakers who consume coal, oil and other earth products to fire up their dirty plants. Unfortunately, the world is smelling more like Texas every day, and it ain’t a good smell.

SCOTT SVATOS

Santa Monica

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Bush’s decision to not regulate power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions is a disastrous one and the motives for it can be summed up in one sentence of the article, “Energy industries were among Bush’s most generous donors.” No wonder the Republicans fight campaign finance reform so fiercely! And talk about quid pro quo. Is anyone paying attention?

J.J. FLOWERS

Laguna Beach