We have met the enemy and he is us?
For any potential it offers, the governor’s coal plant deal appears to be an act of political expediency in the face of political extortion. I fear it sacrifices policy in the public interest to appease those seeking to achieve their own ends. At the very least, it is simply conducting Sunflower Electric’s resource planning on public time.
Okay, one of these things is not like the others:
compromise |ˈkämprəˌmīz| (noun)
1. an agreement or a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions : an ability to listen to two sides in a dispute, and devise a compromise acceptable to both
2. a middle state between conflicting opinions or actions reached by mutual concession or modification
3. the acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable
Can you tell which one it is?
The same governor who called upon us to stand up against what he called bad policy and dishonest brokering, has now brokered his own back-room deal and calls upon us to “step aside” so that special interests can achieve their goals. This is presented as a “compromise”, but the only people involved in the terms of the deal were Sunflower Electric and their allies. Those of us advocating open and accountable government and truly comprehensive energy policy that maximizes our state’s renewable energy resources were locked out and misinformed.
At the end of the day, this deal looks a lot more like capitulation and coercion, than it does compromise.
The governor now asks Kansans to trade
· 900MW of unnecessary coal-fired power generation;
· constraint of the powers of the agency charged with protecting our health and environment;
· decreased oversight of electric coops;
· a huge economic, pollution, and carbon liability;
· non-existent or unproven technology;
· transmission to send fossil fuel energy west, instead of lines east to our wind energy markets;
· one of the weakest Renewable Energy Standards in the region; and
· unspecified, limited energy efficiency standards applied only to government buildings;
in exchange for
· decent net-metering – but not for rural coop customers; and
· 180MW of wind energy capacity (not even production) that was already planned.
These “renewable energy gains” are a good place to start a responsible comprehensive energy policy. They are hardly where Kansas – with our abundant renewable energy resources – would hope to end up after years of wrangling with the issues, and especially given the current economic and energy priorities of the nation. And they do not even begin to “offset”, “mitigate”, or “reduce” the costs of carbon emissions from the plant as suggested.
Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:24 am
Is this a done deal? Is there anything citizens can do at this point?
May 9th, 2009 at 10:32 am
So it looks as though the next task is to create pressure with the crumbs of alternative energy tossed our way? + Keeping a strategic eye on how to turn those “crumbs” into doors to larger alternative energy developments in the NEAR!! future. When handed lemons make lemonade and plant the seeds.
May 11th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
The agreement/bill allows Sunflower Electric to come back in two years and get another plant approved. Does that sound like a compromise? No, it’s exactly what they wanted in the first place. Meanwhile we get 11 million tons of CO2 a year.
Lawsuits might slow it up but now we must focus on getting the Obama Administration to impose an immediate moratorium on new coal-fired plants. How can the Obama Administration be serious about fighting Global Warming if new plants are allowed to be built?
I’ve faxed the White House asking for a moratorium. Emails tend to be ignored and deleted. Letters take six weeks due to anthrax searches.
July 20th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Has the Kansas Democratic Party been completely taken over by the interests of a few Union workers or what?
The Unions are(not surprisingly along with) Corporate ‘Sunflower Electric’ America the only ones who are going to benefit from this. They are on the wrong side of history, and are selling out the future of this State, its welfare and its health with their short-sighted, self-centered, selfish greed and nonsense.
Shame on the Kansas Democratic Party for completely selling out to the worst passions of humanity. They make Mark Sanford and John Ensign look like purveryors of Truth and (marital/family) Loyalty.
Hopefully Gov. Parkinson and other elected officials will be remembered as one of the great cowards and scoundrels of Kansas history.