This is in response to the guest column on Oct. 12 by Dr. Mark Vossler in the Redmond Reporter on Initiative 1631.

We all agree that air pollution is bad. However, taxing industrial emitters and only some emitters of air pollutants will do nothing to reduce, or even affect air pollution in the slightest. This is a misguided attempt to do good whose sole effect will be to raise energy and fuel costs to the consumer.

Who do you think will bear the costs of these taxes? The polluters? Evidently some dreamers really believe that polluters will suffer higher costs and mend their ways. No, these costs will simply be passed along to their consumers (eventually, all of us) as one of those miscellaneous added-on charges at the end of our monthly bills and gas pump prices and paid with a shrug.

And what will be done with this newly collected tax revenue? It seems that has not been determined at this point. You can be sure that whatever would be left over after new administrative costs will be greedily debated by our friends in government. And let’s remember that there will have been no reduction in air pollution and you and I will simply have one more insidious cost increase buried in our monthly bills.

Joel Druckman

Carnation