Let's hope it dies

As a recently turned conservative independent voter, I would like to congratulate my U.S. representative, Jason Altmire, D-McCandless, for voting against the cap-and-trade bill. He, along with my neighboring district's Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper and 42 other Democrats, voted against this bad piece of legislation. We can only hope it dies in the Senate. How much harm is in the bill's 300 pages of late-night addendums that weren't properly read or debated?

In your editorial supporting the bill ("Climactic Vote: Local Congressmen Should Support the Energy Bill," June 22), you said, "Working people in the Beaver Valley or anywhere else are not served by clinging to the past." Rep. Altmire definitely had the working people of the Beaver Valley in mind when he cast his vote against his party and the president.

Pittsburgh has been under Democratic leadership for decades and is a financial mess. Maybe it's time for that electorate to stop clinging to the past and vote out the Democrats.

ANTHONY BUZARD
Cranberry

It will create jobs

There were three letters to the editor in the July 1 Post-Gazette supporting U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy's position against the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which was recently passed by the House. They mostly wrote about jobs being lost and additional costs to consumers.

One of the sources of this misinformation was the Heritage Foundation. This group of ultraconservatives is well-known for opposing any new ideas and especially those that would mean we should stop destroying the environment. Since I don't trust their figures, I did some research.

The number of coal mining jobs in Pennsylvania in 2006 was 7,526. The number of people working in Pennsylvania coal-fired power plants was 3,686. That's a total of about 11,000 jobs from coal power, and none of these would be lost as a result of the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

The new energy-technology jobs will employ far more than 11,000 people in Pennsylvania and produce electrical energy at costs comparable to what we're paying now. In fact, our state is already one of the leaders in the use of wind energy, and this has added to the number of jobs.

New industries create new jobs. This legislation will create new jobs in Pennsylvania and other states of our union. If the Senate doesn't pass similar legislation, the new jobs will be in Europe and other places that do take the needed action. Those who are against this bill on the basis of jobs have the argument exactly backward.

ROBERT J. REILAND
O'Hara

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