The Wonk Room

Resisting Fearmongering, Kansas Governor Holds Firm On Rejecting Dirty Coal

Last October, the Kansas Department of Health denied air quality permits to a proposed coal plant expansion near Holcomb, KS, because of the danger greenhouse gas emissions pose to the climate. Ever since, coal’s proponents have waged an aggressive, fear-centered campaign against Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ (D) administration.

Today, Sebelius issued a long-expected veto of the legislature’s plan to not only approve the plant but also strip the Department of Health of its regulatory capacity. From her veto statement:

This decision not only preserves Kansans’ health and upholds our moral obligation to be good stewards of this beautiful land, but will also enhance our prospects for strong and sustainable economic growth throughout our state. Instead of building two new coal plants, which would produce 11 million new tons of carbon dioxide each year, I support pursuing other, more promising energy and economic development alternatives.

Big Coal’s allies had pulled out all the stops to pressure Sebelius into approving the drastic bill. Following the air permit denial, Peabody Energy, one of the largest coal companies in the world, funded newspaper ads comparing the governor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladmir Putin, and Hugo Chavez. When that failed, Sunflower Electric — the company making the bid for the new plants — offered a quid pro quo to Kansas State University, promising millions of dollars to fund energy research if the coal plants were approved.

Just this week, coal’s allies in the state legislature insisted that the state “lost a chance to win a $10 billion [oil] refinery because of the recent rejection” of the coal project. As a spokeswoman for Sebelius pointed out that the company’s first choice has been South Dakota “since June 2007 — which was well before the Sunflower decision.”

UPDATE: ClimateProgress points out that Sebelius has offered compromise legislation that would allow for a coal plant to be built with carbon sequestration technology.

UPDATE: WarmingLaw contrasts the record of Kansas Secretary of Health and the Environment, Roderick Bremby, who made the landmark decision, to that of United States Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.

Fox Fearmongers On Climate Change, Says Addressing Global Warming Will ‘Be Painful’

Yesterday Fox News ran a segment on a yet-to-be-released poll by the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research. The poll states that 48 percent of “Americans wouldn’t be willing to pay even a penny more for gasoline” to combat global warming.

Fox jumped on the poll to fearmonger on the costs of combating climate change, saying any mitigation effort “is going to be painful” and framing it as a standoff between Congress and the American people:

The United States is a signatory to this UN climate change initiative, and Congressman John Dingell of Michigan says we have to come into compliance and do something, and the way to do that is to cause pain to people. If we want to stop global warming, and it’s an urgent situation like many claim it is, it’s going to be painful. [...]

But what we’re finding of course — and here’s the conflict: the American public is not going to take this lying down, and that’s where the conflict is going to come later on.

Watch it:

Fox’s report is — unsurprisingly — flawed for many reasons. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, the global warming bill expected to reach the Senate floor this summer, does not call for a gasoline tax. The bill features a cap-and-trade system that would gradually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Though the bill does cover the transportation sector, it does not propose that the government impose a tax on gasoline.

Fox’s insistence that combatting climate change would “be painful” is simply another example of the channel’s incessant fearmongering on the topic.

In fact, even the Stephen-Johnson-led Environmental Protection Agency admitted in a report last week that cap-and-trade would barely affect economic growth, confirming many other estimates that show combating global warming is affordable. What’s more, the EPA report did not even take into account the economic benefits from emissions reductions, the enormous cost of inaction, or the significant greenhouse gas reductions already in place due to the 2007 energy bill.

Fox’s insistence that “the public won’t take this lying down” is particularly disingenuous. A BBC poll from November showed that 83 percent of the 22,000 people surveyed in 21 nations said they were willing to make changes in their lifestyles to address global warming. Closer to home, a 2007 poll found that 78 percent of Americans believe we must take action “right away” to mitigate the effects of climate change.