As Iowans check in here for responses and opinions about today's important primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, take the time to read this letter I sent to every member of ther Kansas state legislature back in February.
Our Governor, Kathleen Sebelius, had the courage and the foresight to defy our Republican-ruled legislature, and vetoed the bill that would have allowed construction of a pair of coal-fired plants in western Kansas.
While Kansas would have gotten all the pollution from the plant, Colorado, which has outlawed future coal-fired plants, would receive all the power those plants produced. The only other obvious Kansas beneficiaries are those lawmakers who supported the bill, who also have taken campaign contributions from the energy giants who want this plant up and running and belching out smoke and not-so-green money.
The same legislature was four votes short of overriding her veto, and those courageous lawmakers who joined her defiance of this callous, careless attempt by our own lawmakers to capitalize on the suffering of their fellow Kansans, are true-blue heroes in this state.
Just change “Sunflower State” to “Tall Corn State” and change the word “Kansas” to “Iowa” and it fits the situation in Iowa just as appropriately.
Don't let your lawmakers make pawns of their own citizens, in exchange for some cheap campaign money, folks, take a stand against these modern-day fire-breathing dragons, and tell your public servants they work for you, not the other way around.
Feel free to revise and sent them this letter, if it suits your needs.
6 Comments
thanks for posting this diary
I hope we can achieve the same outcome one way or another in Iowa.
desmoinesdem Tue 6 May 10:07 AM
It is still not over in Kansas...they are trying a nuclear option...
Kansas Republicans are desperate to have their coal plant…
From the Warming Law Blog
Sebelius Wins Again…
But Big Coal Blackmails a “Hail Mary”
As most readers are probably aware, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius has held off a third attempt to reverse her administration’s rejection of two coal-fired plants, with the Kansas House failing to override her veto of industry-backed legislation by four votes (Sebelius’ previous vetoes were sustained by a slimmer margin). House leaders have now threatened to sue Sebelius– a symbolic move admittedly aimed at countering threats that a veto override wouldn’t be enough to guarantee the plants’ construction– but they haven’t given up the ghost either.
The implications of this fight remain national in scope, so Sunflower Electric’s allies in the House are refusing to go down without kicking and screaming, holding open the narrow possiblity of turning the tide (though the exhausted state Senate might pull the plug by ending their legislative session early this week). On Saturday, before adjourning they created “Hail Mary” legislation by attaching their bill to an economic development package for the state’s most populous county.
http://warminglaw.typepad.com/…
Don’t we all wish they worked as hard protecting our health and welfare as they do fighting tooth and nail for their big money campaign contributors?
Expect as much in Iowa, hopefully the Democrats in the middle of this mess will see the light and climb up out of the 19th Century.
Are any of them facing a primary challenge?
If so, they should weigh their approval of this bad idea much more carefully, or they may face serious concequences at the polls. Hopefully in June, and not in November.
jep Tue 6 May 10:53 AM
I suspect the issue is that
our Iowa Democrats are more worried about offending organized labor (which supports new coal plants) than they are about global warming or the public-health effects of burning more coal.
It’s not even as if Iowa is a coal-mining state anymore. we have to import all the coal this plant would burn.
The speculation I keep hearing is that many influential Democrats know new coal plants should not be built, but they don’t want to be the ones to kill them.
desmoinesdem Tue 6 May 11:23 AM
I would guess that alternative energy developments...
will create more new jobs over the next ten years than the coal-fired plants would.
The unions would be wise to form a feeler group NOW to consider the possibility of organizing an alternative energy worker’s union, I am absolutely serious, just in case anyone thinks this is sacrcasm.
They should consider forming something like a hybrid of Hy Vee’s employee ownership formula (minus the neocon management) and a standard worker’s union.
It would help hasten the development of some of these alternatives and also help assure this fledgling new-fuel industry won’t get bought up by the robber barrons.
I worked for Chicago Northwestern RR in Des Moines back when the employees owned the company (35 years ago or thereabouts). It seems that unions are a very good starting point for his type of historic change in our entire approach to corporations.
And alternative energy production would be a great place for them to make that start.
jep Thu 8 May 7:06 PM
we need to educate people more about this stuff
Last night I met a lobbyist in the public-health area (that is, someone who should understand the downsides of building coal plants), and he was telling me how environmentalists need to understand that the wind doesn’t blow all the time, so wind energy might be nice, but it’s never going to replace coal.
It’s a combination of conservation (which is the quickest and most cost-effective way to make our energy supply meet demand) and generating electricity from renewable sources that will make coal-fired power plants unnecessary in the future, but that isn’t well-understood.
desmoinesdem Thu 8 May 11:24 PM
With all the other alternatives available
…why does coal have to be the back-up for wind? Local electricity production, making communities respnsible for the lion’s share of their own energy, would initiate an era of innovation and enterprise that we have rarely seen in our history. But we need to subsidize that transition, not the oil and coal companies, whose profits already exceed any historic models.
While I agree with your assertion that conservation is one of the best answers, this defense of coal as the standard just proves we are being misled by our leaders.
We can put a few billion dollars a month into Iraq, why can’t we put as much into saving our future for our progeny? Building bio-fuel powered generators (and I don’t mean grain-based ethanol) as the back-up to those wind turbines would go a long way towards bringing our utility costs and profits into the local loop, creating high-tech local jobs and paying local farmers for the raw materials (and I don;t mean grain-based ethanol).
In turn, those farmers spend their money locally.
Coal, like oil, is just another bad habit, perpetuated by the old money and dying generation that depended on it.
jep Sun 18 May 3:30 PM