Cheese flavored lies

Another post from The Kansas Republican, another lie. Or at least a blind assumption made in the absence of facts.

These clowns read a story on da int-ruh-netz that said a cheese factory decided to locate in Eastern Colorado as opposed to Western Kansas.

OBVIOUSLY this is Gov. Sebelius' fault. Not the Republican-controlled legislature. They eveen linked to the story!

The problem is, the story made no mention of anything even remotely political.

Leprino reportedly chose the location partly due to the quality and availability of milk in neighbouring Weld County. Moerover, in December 2007, FLEXNEWS had reported that Leprino had also considered other locations for the plant in north Colorado and in south west Kansas.

Leprino provides mozzarella cheese to companies such as Domino's Pizza and Pizza Hut and has 9 plants in the US, and 2 in the UK.

Apparently its Governor Sebelius' fault there isn't more/higher quality milk in Western Kansas.

Then, they repeat the same baseless accusations made by their cousins over at Stay Red Kansas, that 1) the recent GAO decision was the result of Roberts, Tiahrt, Brownback and Moran's hard work and 2) Jim Slattery is angry about the decision.

Meanwhile, thanks to tireless work by Senator Roberts, Brownback and the rest of
the DC gang, the GAO ruled that the Air Force's procurement process was not
handled properly.

What, no props for Reps. Nancy Boyda and Dennis Moore?

Nevermind the fact that Slattery released a press release praising the decision or that Roberts and Brownback actively created an atmosphere condusive to the decision while Tiahrt and Moran sat on their hands.

The casual relationship that TKR and SRK seem to have with "facts" and "truth" is starting to get annoying.

Hyperion Hype

We'd like to congratulate our friends over at TheKansasRepublican for finally beginning to grasp one of the most basic principles of blogging: citing your arguments. In their most recent rant about Holcomb/Hyperion, the blogger known as "Custer" links to an "expose" in the Topeka Capital-Journal. Bravo, TKR, bravo. You have discovered a hyperlink. Of course, the story doesn't actually say what you claim it does, but that's OK. Baby steps.

You see, TKR would have you believe that, were it not for KDHE director Rod Bremby's rejection of the plant and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' subsequent decision to thrice veto bills overturning that decision, Hyperion would be on its way to Pottawatomie County. Oh, and apparently gas prices would be like $0.30/gallon in NE Kansas. To prove this, they link to this story in the Capital-Journal written by James Carlson.

What should be noted about this story is that no one from the KDHE or from Hyperion is ever quoted as saying the Holcomb decision caused the plant to go to South Dakota. All the evidence that is given is from a low-level county board member and some vague references to the regulation in emails to government officials.

Obviously, Hyperion was concerned, but according to the story, Bremby did everything he could to land this refinery.

Phillips wrote to Kansas commerce secretary David Kerr on Jan. 22 asking for a commitment to approve the air-quality permit if Hyperion applied in Kansas. Bremby replied Feb. 11, "Kansas remains open for business."

Bremby wrote he couldn't commit to issuing the permit but said if Hyperion submitted the same application as they did in South Dakota, there "should not be a problem with issuance."

Doesn't sound very uncertain to me. Obviously, Secretary Bremby is not going to give them carte blanche by promising to approve a permit he hasn't even seen yet, but it appears to me that he is making it very clear that their chances are good.

This issue, however, is moot. The story confirms once again that, Holcomb decision or not, Kansas had next to no chance at getting the facility anyway. Before any of this happened, Hyperion had already purchased land in South Dakota and was in the process of getting it zoned.

In June 2007, after media speculation about a mystery company buying up land around Elk Point, S.D., Hyperion announced it was considering the South Dakota city as a location.

Soon after, RTP Environmental Associates Inc., a consultant for Hyperion, began work on the permitting process with South Dakota officials.

In September, Colin Campbell, the RTP employee in charge of the Hyperion project, e-mailed the Environmental Protection Agency, saying he would be submitting an air-quality permit application for the South Dakota location soon.

"A different site could ultimately be selected, but we can deal with that circumstance if and when it arises," Campbell wrote.

Carlson acknowledges South Dakota was moving ahead. "We were probably a little behind," he said. "(Hyperion was) renewing land options up there."

The Kansas Department of Commerce points to the South Dakota site announcement and the subsequent months of dialogue between that state and Hyperion as a clue that Kansas was a backup.

"All indications in the summer and fall were that the gears were turning in South Dakota and that South Dakota had emerged as the top candidate," said Joe Monaco, spokesman for the commerce department.

Next time boys and girls, read the article (the ENTIRE article) before you link to it and make sure it doesn't disprove your entire position.

This concludes today's session of Blogging 101.

Massive props to Rep. Josh Svaty (D-Ellsworth)

Rep. Josh Svaty has penned a brilliant piece, outlining his opposition to the Holcomb bill. Rep. Svaty says it better than we could ever dream of saying it, so we'll just let his words speak for themselves. Tip of the hat to Peg at KansasPrairie.net. It's kind of long, but if this is an issue you are passionate about, it's well worth the read.

I am not opposed to coal. I want to see baseload generation built in Southwest Kansas. I do not take my orders from the Governor.

I have tried to avoid the discussion of coal, but this is truly what this session has become, and it deserves a great deal of attention. I want to start by saying this: I have never been more proud of the area I represent than at times like this. These past few weeks have been very difficult – I have been called names, my wife has been drug in to my issues, and we have received many very forceful comments from individuals. I am proud to say that none of those comments have come from this district. I know from your comments that many of you agree with me, and some of you do not. However, those of you that do not have been very respectful in your approach, and I cannot extend to you enough gratitude. Thank you.

I reiterate the points I made earlier – I am not opposed to coal and I recognize the role it will have to play as we transition to the future. However, as this session opened it became apparent that there was to be no compromising in terms of what the final legislation would look like. Hearings were rushed, amendments were pre-drafted and approved by a committee to which no one was publicly appointed. I made my stand; I tried to have them slow down and be more deliberate; but the groups interested in this bill were not listening to a broad swath of Kansans.

We now find ourselves with two basically identical bills. They have been vetoed by the Governor; one has already been overriden by the Senate and both await action by the House. Some of you have wanted me to support Sunflower and Holcomb, but we can never lose sight of an elected official’s job: as a legislator, I don’t vote for issues, I vote for bills. The two bills before me contain public policy so loosely formed and so dangerous in their effect that I can hardly call them “public policy.”

Some would say that there are very good “green” things in these bills – a renewable portfolio standard, net metering only for solar, etc. Those elements are both small and hardly compare to the underlying bill. Besides, they will always be nothing more than window dressing when they are used to bring votes rather than being a genuine policy shift. You could describe these bills this way – a smoker that smokes two packs of cigarettes a day has decided to quit, for the sake of his health. He therefore decides to start wearing a nicotene patch, and limits himself to only smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. He also makes no effort to exercise and be more active (which in the case of our little metaphor would be energy efficiency and conservation, two elements all-but nonexistent in these bills.) Now, he is not only paying for the cigarettes, but he is also paying for the patch, which does nothing for him.

Some would say that Secretary Bremby’s authority needs to be curtailed. That is for the courts to decide. When a cabinet-level Secretary makes a determination that someone does not agree with, they can go to court and seek an interpretation of that Secretary’s statutory authority. Sunflower has done this, and that case is pending before the Kansas Supreme Court. However, Sunflower also decided to preempt that decision and have the legislature change the law (and make it retroactive.) If there is ambiguity in the Clean Air Act’s language – if the Secretary did in fact overstep his bounds - by all means we should fix it. However, on an issue this big we should wait for an interpretation from the court.

Some would say that we need the access to cheap power. This is where I will have to stop for the week, because I do not have the space to devote to this issue. However, it is my humble opinion, after years of energy briefings, that cheap power will be hard to come by in the near term, and it will not likely be coming from coal. Cost of coal plants are skyrocketing, and that is without any monetization of carbon dioxide from the Federal level, which is likely. Every other utility in the state has shelved or postponed its plans for a coal plant until they find out what is going on federally. Kansas City Power and Light is halfway through construction of their new plant in Missouri, and they are already 700 million dollars over budget on a 1 billion dollar plant. To charge in now with the biggest coal plant this state has seen in decades would be foolish, and that foolishness would expose the ratepayers to all of that
risk. In the past that risk was tempered by the fact that the Kansas Corporation
Commission would oversee and approve all of the rate increases by Sunflower to
make sure they were “prudent.”

Oh yeah, one other thing these bills do: they remove the KCC oversight from Sunflower’s rates – that protection would now be gone.

Thanks to Gov. Sebelius, Rep. Svaty and the other legislators who were able to withstand the bullying tactics of Speaker Neufeld and do what is right for Kansas.

Hey Mel, you're going the wrong way!

Another day, another cockamamie attempt at passing a coal bill from House Speaker Melvin Neufeld.

This time the boys on the right decided to bundle the coal bill with some totally unrelated projects to stimulate economic development in Johnson County. In addition to needlessly putting these important projects at risk, but Senators on both sides of the aisle view it as an unconstitutional grouping of non-germane bills.

Nevertheless, the bill passed the Senate and was sent on to the house. Now, after getting 83 votes on the last bill, and then only 80 votes on the attempt to override the Governor's veto, Mel and his buddies managed only 76 votes today. A full eight votes short of the necessary 2/3 majority needed to override the Governor's likely veto.

Another failure in Melvin Neufeld's seemingly endless attempt to win this petty battle and another example that he will do anything and put any project at risk just to get another (or a first?) notch in his belt.

If you play with fire Melvin, you're gonna get burned.

Melvin Neufeld is a sore loser

Having been soundly defeated in his attempt to override Governor Kathleen Sebelius' veto of the Holcomb coal power plant bill last week, Melivn Neufeld and his cronies in the House have threatened to file a (frivoulus?) lawsuit against Governor Kathleen Sebelius for...well...we're not really sure. Disagreeing with them?

"[Lt. Governor Mark Parkinson] came out and said regardless of what we do we don't have any grounds to do
what we're going to do," Merrick said. "It's us saying there is a separation of
power issue, and we're going to take care of our interest and protect our
members because we are an equal body."

Uh, we're no political science majors or anything (oh wait, yes we are!), but this seems more to us like a case where the separation of powers has been markedly successful.

Merrick and Neufeld had a chance to override the Governor's veto (her check on the powers of the legislative branch) and failed. The fact that Neufeld and Merrick couldn't muster the votes to override the veto just means they were on the wrong side of the issue. The mere opportunity to do so is the separation of powers in action.

Nowhere in the Constitution, state or federal, does it say that the outcome of such maneuvering has to be to the liking of the majority.

The Wichita Eagle's Phillip Brownlee hit the nail on the head in his blog today.

The Kansas Supreme Court will decide whether Bremby followed the rule of law. It would be a waste of taxpayer money for the Legislature to go to court over the same issues.

What are they suing her for again? My head hurts.

NEUFELD LOSES THREE VOTES: OVERRIDE FAILS

Melvin Neufeld waited until exactly the right time.

He had threatened to keep the legislature in session indefinitely until the Governor's veto of two coal-powered, carbon-belching power plants in Western Kansas could be safely overridden.

So yesterday, ol' Mel finally unleashed the fury, holding a vote to override the veto, confident he had his 84 votes.

That confidence was misplaced. After holding legislators hostage for hours trying to find the votes, the override attempt failed, 80-45. Not only did he not get an extra vote -- the bill passed the house originally with 83 votes -- he actually had a net LOSS of three votes. All the arm-twisting, threatening and game-playing just turned people away.

Of course, it's only because Kathleen Sebelius bought people tickets to the final four.

Neufeld said after the vote that Sebelius allowed legislators to fly on state aircraft to The University of Kansas games in the NCAA Tournament to leverage her position on the coal fight.

"What else did the state pay for?" the speaker said. "I have no idea."

What soon-to-be-former-Speaker Neufeld fails to mention is that the individuals in question paid their own way. He also forgot that many of them were and still are in favor of the coal plants and that it's commonplace for a governor to bring legislators along on when traveling in their official capacity.

But I'm sure none of the special projects that he was promising to give people if they voted his way would have cost the state any money.

On a troubling note, Rep. Tom Hawk (D-Manhattan) voted with Neufeld and the rest of the Sunflower cronies. Rep. Hawk has been on the right side of this issue from day one, but yesterday there were some rumblings around the capitol that he had been seduced by Neufeld. We don't know the reason yet and we may never, but this blogger is shocked and saddened that a man who has been a very good legislator could flip-flop on such an important issue. We'll bring you more details as we get them.

Republicans voting yes: Aurand, Beamer, Bethell, Bowers, Brown, Brunk, Burgess, Carlson, Colyer, Craft, Crum, Dahl, Donohoe, Faber, Fund, George, Goico, Gordon, Grange, Hayzlett, Hill, Carl Holmes, Mitch Holmes, Horst, Huebert, Humerickhouse, Johnson, Kelley, Kelsey, Kiegerl, King, Kinzer, Knox, Landwehr, Light, Mast, Masterson, McLeland, Merrick, Jim Morrison, Moxley, Myers, Neufeld, Olson, O'Neal, Otto, Owens, Patton, Peck, Powell, Powers, Proehl, Rhoades, Roth, Schroeder, Schwartz, Shultz, Siegfreid, Sloan, Swanson, Tafanelli, Vickrey, Watkins, Whitham, Wilk, William Wolf and Yoder.

Republicans voting no: Colloton, Hodge, Huntington, Metsker, Judy Morrison, Pottorff, Quigley, Spalding, Swenson, Kay Wolf and Worley.

Democrats voting yes: Feuerborn, Gatewood, Grant, Hawk, Lukert, McKinney, Palmer, Pauls, Peterson, Phelps, Ruff, Wetta and Williams.

Democrats voting no: Ballard, Burroughs, Carlin, Crow, Davis, Dillmore, Faust-Goudeau, Flaharty, Flora, Frownfelter, Garcia, Goyle, Henderson, Henry, Holland, Kuether, Lane, Loganbill, Long, Mah, McCray-Miller, McLachlan, Menghini, Neighbor, Rardin, Ruiz, Sawyer, Storm, Svaty, Tietze, Treaster, Trimmer, Ward and
Winn.

URGENT: COAL OVERRIDE VOTE SCHEDULED FOR 2:30 TODAY!!!

Call your legislator IMMEDIATELY and tell them we don't need these giant, carbon-belching coal plants.

Call your legislator IMMEDIATELY and tell them to push for Governor Kathleen Sebelous' common sense compromise.

While you're at it, call Speaker Neufeld and tell him your sick and tired of him twisting the arms of legislators and holding important projects over their heads.

The future of Kansas is on the line at 2:30. Make the call.

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What say you, Americans for Prosperity

After listening to Americans for Prosperity drone on and on about what a horrible state for business we find ourselves in, some might have been shocked when they happened upon a recent story in the Lawrence Journal-World entitled "Kansas No. 10 Pro-business state."

Using 29 categories — including taxes, quality of life, human resources, labor, education, infrastructure and incentive programs — the study’s authors indicate the best places to expand a business.

In Kansas’ case, the state fared well by having a relatively high-quality work force, plus relatively low costs for utility services (emphasis added) unemployment insurance and workers compensation rates, said Brent Pollina, the study’s lead author.

Kansas also has effective professionals working on economic-development activities at the state level, he said, reflecting a commitment from the governor’s office.

Though the story does say Kansas is 38th in business taxes, it goes on to say that it is still a very hospitable state for business.

“Kansas actually is one of the rare states out there that seems to being doing right by the business community in their state,” said Pollina, vice president for the Chicago-based firm, which provides project-management services for Fortune 500 companies and others looking to expand into new areas of North America. “They have been constantly going over what the state government does and trying to make improvements on it, whereas most of the other states out there figure good enough is good enough.”

Looks like all those horror stories Alan Cobb and his anti-tax cronies tell you have no basis in reality. But then again, we've seen how well Alan Cobb deals with reality.