Enact the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act
To the editor:
Dec. 11 commemorated the 20th anniversary of Congress’s approval for a federal-state framework to restore the Everglades known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.
In an Op-ed, Sen. Marco Rubio wrote about the progress restoring the ecosystem and sending the water south to re-establish the natural flow and minimize the harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee that are poising our communities with toxic algae blooms and red tide. If you, like me, have a respiratory condition such as asthma, you need to avoid the beach during red tide, which was the case in Collier and Lee County last week.
I ultimately agreed with Sen. Rubio when he says that the goal to restore the Everglades is too important to stop fighting because it presents a public health and economic concern for the state of Florida; however, excluding climate change from the Everglades restoration conversation is like putting a bandage to a wound without curing the infection.
Because Francis Rooney, outgoing Congressional representative for District 19 and Everglades champion, understands the importance of climate mitigation to the ecosystem, he introduced the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, an effective bipartisan bill that put a price on carbon to correct the failure of the market for the cost of unmitigated fossil fuel emission pollution, the carbon dividends are returned to the people putting money directly into their pockets every month to spend as they see fit stimulating the economy and helping low and middle-income Americans.
If we want to continue to celebrate progress in the Everglades restoration, is imperative that we need to enact legislation such as the EICDA that will reduce America’s emission by 40% in the first 12 years.
Solemi Hernandez
Southeast Regional coordinator
Citizens Climate Lobby, Naples