WASHINGTON DC -- In a letter delivered today to key Members and committees of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, more than 100 businesses, organizations, and individual activists called upon Congress to support a fee on the carbon content of fuels as part of the broader mix of strategies for addressing climate change.

Stressing the need "to employ a broad range of strategies to significantly reduce total energy use and to encourage the rapidly expanded use of non-fossil and non-nuclear renewable sources of energy," the letter argued that "some form of user fee based on the carbon content of fuels is [also] essential."

Furthermore, "a carbon fee is arguably the most transparent, universal, equitable, understandable, and immediate way to internalize the true environmental cost of consuming the fossil fuels that contribute to climate change." Therefore, "we believe that some form of carbon fee must be made a key element of a wider strategy for addressing climate change and it should be among the measures considered and enacted by the U.S. Congress in the very near term."

To address potentially adverse impacts on lower-income citizens, the signers on the letter added that a carbon fee "should be accompanied by tax-shifting - and possibly revenue-neutral - offsets such as reductions in payroll or other taxes, larger tax credits for lower-income citizens, or increases in programs such as weatherization and mass transit that directly assist citizens to reduce their total energy use."

The full text of the letter and list of signers follows.

A copy of the letter and list of signers may be requested by sending an e-mail to sustainable-energy-network@hotmail.com.

The Sustainable Energy Network is a nationwide network of almost 400 organizations, businesses, and individual activists promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency as solutions to climate change and dependence on energy imports and nuclear power.

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