Editor:
I saw your article(s) about AB32.
It hit us at about $0.10 per gallon. I went to get gas today and sure enough, it was about 10 cents more.
So, if you work it, it comes out to almost a 5 percent increase in price. What will that do to our food prices? Prices of everything else? I tried reaching out to Suburban to find out what the propane rate hike would be but there is no answer.
I’ll reach out to our freight carriers we use to see what our fuel surcharges will be now. We just had a small increase last quarter. I will find out if they’ll put the touch on us again.
The thing your article pointed out that I did not realize is that this tax will reduce available carbon credits by 3 percent per year. When that happens over the next five years we will have a cumulative effect of about 14 percent fewer available credits. That’s easy to understand.
However, the free-market competition for those carbon credits will affect fuel prices to the end consumer in an unpredictable way.
The earlier estimates from some pundits said it would impact us from $0.15 to $0.75 per gallon of gasoline. I am happy that it was only $0.10.
Frankly, I am most concerned about what this will do for the folk having a hard enough time buying their groceries, paying their heating bill and getting to and from work. The current fuel prices will not stay this low for long.
Chris Johnston
Idyllwild