Reed letter: Clean power plan

I was alarmed by the narrow mindedness of Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Idaho Falls, in his Nov. 20 guest opinion regarding the Clean Power Plan. Besides classic “anti-Fed” rhetoric, his main points seemed to be about the Plan not having a substantial impact on carbon based climate change and how a possible increase in electricity rates could damage our economy. Given the majority of our southern Idaho agricultural economy is entirely dependent on mountain snowpack fed irrigation, why isn’t Thompson writing about the tremendous risk to our economy posed by a warming climate? I hate to think about southern Idaho’s farming prospects after a few more winters like 2014/15. If Thompson is really concerned about our economy, he should be pushing for more aggressive U.S. global leadership for bigger impacts in combating climate change.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 11:36 PM with the headline "Reed letter: Clean power plan."