LETTER: Carbon tax, free market are the best regulators

Your Thursday editorial criticizing Assembly Bill 380, which aims to reduce the amount of natural gas Nevadans use, misses the better way of regulating greenhouse gas emissions: the free market. If the federal government would add a small but gradually increasing fee on gas, and then rebate 100 percent of the money to residents, the problem will solve itself.

Nevadans will spend the rebate on the higher-priced gas until alternatives are cheaper. They will reduce usage of gas to save money. Innovators will unleash American ingenuity to create new ideas. Who knows? Maybe generating hydrogen from solar power will become cheap enough to have hydrogen run through the pipes instead of natural gas.

AB380 shows the limits, inflexibility and cost of regulation. Carbon pricing is faster, more effective and less expensive.