To the editor:

A proposal to end subsidies for coal and big oil is being opposed by the fossil fuel industry that says the proposal is misinformed and discriminatory and counterproductive in that it would undermine U.S. competitiveness and discourage future investment in renewable and alternative energy projects in the United States and therefore undercut job creation and economic growth.

It seems that the best way to turn the U.S. economy and all this climate change and fouled air nastiness from fossil fuels around would be to dedicate the increased revenues that would result from ending the dirty coal and petroleum oil subsides to developing substitutes for fossil-fuel power generation and petroleum-based transportation fuels with innovative repowering technologies and products that could be manufactured in the United States.

This would encourage investment in more clean-distributed energy projects in the U.S. and therefore lead to more job creation and economic growth sooner, as well as increase U.S. competitiveness through exports of those same technologies that would lower the demand for oil and thus lower or help restrain the rising price of transport fuels.

A multi-tech pathway for such projects that offers CHP (combined heat and power) plus fuels derived from diverse biomass and wastes is the pathway that would amount to an Apollo program to reach for the moon in repowering this nation and the world.