Time for users to pay fair share

The city of Glendale is poised to do the right thing: increase electricity rates and refuse to coddle the consumers who like their electricity cheap and dirty.

The fossil-fuel industry receives massive government subsidies, starting with virtually free extraction rights, and including permission to spoil the air, land and water, being let off the hook for causing tens of thousands of cancer deaths and hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks a year, receiving tax breaks, and, finally, being the number-one contributor to climate change while paying no carbon tax. It is time for the industry and its customers to pay their fair share and it is good to see Glendale moving in that direction.

If people would like to have lower electricity bills, I suggest that they spend $30 to buy an electricity monitor and use it to root out and control the energy hogs in their homes. Such devices are routinely used to reduce electricity use by far more than the proposed rate increases. When buying appliances, don’t trust the energy ratings posted in stores. Instead, look them up at toptenusa.org or enervee.com.

Scott Peer
Glendale