As we gather our thoughts about solar energy and the makeup of our LPEA board, it might be helpful to look at what the big players are doing.

The Koch brothers and their partners in Big Carbon have finally found a carbon tax they really like.

No, not on the carbon they produce in prodigious amounts. No, not on the income carbon brings them – but on the carbon you might save with your solar panels.

Through the American Legislative Exchange Council (The industry funded posh weekends of golf, good food and schmoozing while corporate lawyers write legislation for the overwhelmingly Republican legislators to take back to their states) and clever ads placed through non-profits, they are pushing for a surtax on the income generated by local solar panels. The obvious idea is to make solar panels more expensive, and, therefore, less popular.

Another innovation they are pushing is to promote a roll-back of the renewable energy goals set by a number of states. Their concern is the bottom line – not the millions of acres of beetle-killed forest or Colorado agriculture’s plight with steadily increasing warmth and drought.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of Koch sniffers. Do you remember Rep. Scott Tipton’s rush to sign the Koch brothers’ front group Americans for Prosperity pledge to “oppose legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue”? It is bitter irony that now the Koch brothers are promoting a new tax on you and me.

Christopher Isensee

Durango