Reading Dick Polman’s commentary on Saturday’s Opinion page about the disconnect between GOP governors and senators on the economic stimulus package, a Kansan might wonder whether Sen. Sam Brownback, for example, might feel differently about the measure if he were Gov. Brownback. The senator said last month: “There’s no doubt our economy needs a stimulus, but more government spending is not the right answer. We should be cutting taxes and we should give back to taxpayers more of their money.” But if Brownback were governor, facing a mammoth 2010 budget gap, he might sound more like Florida’s GOP Gov. Charlie Crist, who stood with President Barack Obama this week and urged passage of the stimulus, saying, “It is important that we do so to help education, to help our infrastructure and to help health care for those who need it most, the most vulnerable among us.”
While the Kansas Legislature is still pushing to build new coal-fired power plants near Holcomb, other states are moving in the opposite direction. So far this year, states that have scrapped or put on hold plans for coal plants include Montana, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Dakota, New Mexico and Nevada. Even conservative GOP Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina came out last week against a proposed coal plant in his state, though regulators upheld a permit given to the utility.
NV Energy shelved its Nevada proposal last week because it expects some form of a carbon tax to pass Congress by the end of 2010. CEO Michael Yackira told the Las Vegas Sun that without knowing the cost of a potential carbon tax system, it was too risky for the company and ratepayers to invest in a plant whose energy might become increasingly expensive over the years.
A bill to abolish the Kansas Turnpike Authority won’t go far this legislative session. But lawmakers should watchdog how the Kansas Turnpike Authority spends the $79 million in tolls it collects each year. As state Sen. Les Donovan, R-Wichita, noted, most of that money goes toward improving the turnpike. But the KTA isn’t particularly frugal with its spending. The toll plaza south of Wellington that was built about five years ago and the expansive exchanges east of Topeka look as if they were designed in the most expensive way possible. The turnpike is a great road that needs proper upkeep. But KTA seems to look for ways to spend money, thus ensuring that it will never go away.
“I don’t think the public fully understands what the recession has done to us. We just don’t have the money to pay anything.” — Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, warning of deep cuts in state agency funding
“This thing is a pimple compared to what we’re going to have to deal with.” — Sen. David Wysong, R-Mission Hills, on the “awful” current-year budget-cutting bill
“The people pushing for the plants are living in 2008, and this is 2009. We need to respect what’s going on in the rest of the country and the world.” — Rep. Josh Svaty (in photo), D-Ellsworth, on the renewed push to approve coal-fired plants in Kansas, despite two pending lawsuits and a new carbon-conscious president
“I don’t think it will be a matter of if we will be sued (by a school district or districts), it’s going to be a matter of who and when.” — Rep. Jene Vickrey, R-Louisburg, on the consequences of K-12 cuts
