Americans have had their budgets stretched to the breaking point by soaring gasoline prices and up to 100% increases in their natural gas bills, with much of the proceeds from our energy consumption enriching unfriendly foreign nations. Now we are threatened by the Democrats with enactment of “cap and trade” legislation in a lame duck session this December. This wrongheaded initiative will dramatically increase our energy costs and cripple American businesses with draconian carbon taxes and regulations while doing practically nothing to address environmental concerns such as man-made global warming, because the world’s leading carbon polluters, China and India, will not be subject to its provisions. We are fed up and demand that our elected representatives at both the State and Federal levels take action now to adopt common sense energy policies that will bring energy costs under control and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
I do not support piecemeal, band-aid approaches to our current energy crisis designed only to provide temporary, short-term relief. Rather, I believe in the establishment of a strategic, all-inclusive energy policy, at both the national and the state levels, which will lower costs and ensure our energy independence over the long haul. Such an “all of the above” policy must tap all of our current and potential new energy resources in an environmentally friendly manner-- nuclear, coal, natural gas, ethanol, wind, hydrogen, biofuels, and of course oil.
Certainly any comprehensive energy policy at the national level must include increased drilling for oil within our own borders, since oil, now and for the foreseeable future, drives the engine of our vibrant American economy. It is estimated that our proven but untapped oil reserves off the Florida and California coasts, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), and in the shale deposits located in our western States, is enough to fuel all our cars and heat all our homes independent of any reliance on foreign oil for the next 60 years. And technology now permits us to retrieve this additional oil with negligible if any adverse effects on the environment. For example, in ANWR, an area roughly the size of Pennsylvania, modern extraction methods would allow us to tap the available oil reserves by drilling in only 2,000 acres on the desolate north coast – that’s the size of a very small town, and represents less than one-half of one percent of ANWR’s total area. Further, the history of past oil exploration and development projects in Alaska has not demonstrated any appreciable harm to wild animal populations; caribou herds in Alaska have in fact dramatically increased around such projects. Moreover, existing oil refineries in the United States are currently operating at about 98% of capacity; yet we haven’t built any new refineries in many years. We must reverse that trend and start constructing new refineries now.
As part of our comprehensive plan for energy independence, we must also develop additional nuclear capabilities. Nuclear power plants provide the cleanest and cheapest energy, yet our nation has not built a new nuclear facility since the 1970s. Meanwhile, much of Europe’s energy is nuclear; France leads the way with over 80% of its energy needs provided by nuclear power. In addition, we should explore and seek to adopt France’s advanced technology for reconstituting spent nuclear fuel rods, thereby drastically reducing nuclear waste disposal problems while recycling the rods for future use, making the net cost of nuclear energy cheaper still. I would sponsor and support legislation designed to bring new technology nuclear power facilities to Kansas.
Of more immediate relevance to Kansans, I am a strong proponent of the new clean coal technology such as that employed by the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation that makes coal-fired power plants more economically beneficial and environmentally sound than ever. I would have voted for the Sunflower coal-fired plant expansion bill passed by the legislature in 2008. I would have voted to override the Governor’s veto of the bill. And I will support similar legislation in the next legislative session. Here are my reasons.
The original decision by the Director of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to deny Sunflower’s application to build the two new plants was not based on any objective, demonstrable evidence of harm to the environment. The adverse environmental impact of carbon dioxide (which makes up only a tiny fraction of the Earth’s atmosphere) has never been conclusively established or quantified by objective scientific evidence. Moreover, Sunflower’s coal plant expansion proposal complied with all existing Federal and State laws and regulations, notably including KDHE’s own regulations and policies. Thus the Director abused his discretion and usurped legislative authority, not only by denying an application for initial plant construction by Sunflower which satisfied all the requirements of his own agency, but by invoking his emergency powers in a non-emergency situation to do so, an unprecedented step never before taken by KDHE. The bill passed by the Legislature would have remedied this breathtaking overreach and abuse of discretion by the Executive branch by removing the KDHE Director’s authority to take such action in the future.
The bill passed by the Legislature but vetoed by the Governor would have approved the Sunflower coal-fired plant expansion with appropriate environmental safeguards, including the cleanest coal-fired plant technology in Kansas history and significant environmental offsets. It would have provided much-needed additional energy resources for Kansans and residents of surrounding States, protecting against projected sharp increases in utility bills. With the Governor’s veto of this legislation, Kansans saw their utility bills significantly increase. The Sunflower legislation would also have resulted in a dramatic economic stimulus to the Kansas economy, including $3.6 billion in direct investment in the project plus untold additional billions in indirect economic benefit, and hundreds of new, high-paying jobs in Kansas, all with negligible scientifically demonstrated adverse impact on the environment.
Moreover, following the Governor’s veto of the Sunflower legislation, Hyperion Oil Company, which had previously been seriously considering eastern Kansas as the site of a new oil refinery it is planning to construct (one of the first new oil refineries to be built anywhere in the United States in years), announced that they had instead decided to locate their new refinery in South Dakota, citing the “adverse regulatory climate” in Kansas. Thus, the Governor’s veto of the Sunflower legislation, and the House’s failure to override that ill-advised veto, likely cost Kansas an additional multi-billion dollar oil refinery construction project, and the many additional jobs such a project would have created as well.
For all these reasons, I would have supported and voted for the Sunflower coal plant legislation in 2008, and will do so if such legislation is again proposed next year. My opponent, Democrat Cindy Neighbor, voted against the original Sunflower coal plant legislation, and three times voted to uphold the Governor’s veto of that legislation. The first of those override attempts failed by just one vote - Ms. Neighbor’s vote. Thus the incalculable harm done to Kansas’ energy needs and economic development by the Governor’s veto of the Sunflower coal-fired plant legislation can be laid directly at Cindy Neighbor’s feet.
