April 8, 2020
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
The Speaker of the House of Representatives
United States Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Madam Speaker and Majority Leader McConnell:
Florida Veterans for Common Sense Inc. is a veterans’ advocacy organization that focuses on national security and veterans issues. We support policies that make America safer and stronger.
The current pandemic is one that most of us have never experienced in our lives. While we are currently focusing on the immediate problems confronting us, one of the primary roles of leadership is thinking about what needs to happen once we are through the current crisis. We offer the following in that spirit.
While we understand that the economic situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic requires rescue or economic stimulation, we wish to point out that the growth economy we had before the pandemic is inherently unsustainable and should not be automatically reinstated when we now have an opportunity to improve it.
We cannot continue business as usual. All the latest reports on global warming tell us that we only have until 2030 to make radical progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Failure to act in a dramatic fashion will lead to dire consequences from the increasing number of natural disasters, sea-level-rise induced floods, mass migrations, and extreme suffering.
The U.S. and world’s economies need to be re-oriented to run on clean energy. A way to stimulate this move is with the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763), which will effectively reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, and improve people’s health. H.R. 763 is bipartisan and revenue neutral.
H.R. 763, will not be all we need to do. For example, we need to institute tree planting programs and develop carbon capture technology to remove the heat trapping gases that are already in the atmosphere. These changes need to happen now so that they will have a substantial effect within the next decade. Otherwise, it will be too late to stem the worst effects of global warming.
All data about global warming lead to the conclusion that business as usual is the worst-case scenario. We should heed the warnings from scientific experts. The economy must be stimulated in a way that significantly reduces fossil fuel use and removes carbon from the atmosphere. The current crisis shows us the cost of failure to pay attention to science, and we need to do so now. We believe the public stands ready to listen to science and wants strong leadership from the federal government on these issues.
The time to act is now.
Sincerely,
/s/
Gene Jones
President, Florida Veterans for Common Sense, Inc.
cc: Media and posted to Internet