Voice For Liberty

Category: Kansas state government

  • Maryland Previews Kansas Climate Change Panel

    In Kansas, the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP, is meeting and planning the future of Kansas energy policy.

    If we want to see what the conclusions of this effort will look like, we can look to the just-completed effort in Maryland. Yes, we’ll have to make a few adjustments, as Maryland has a seashore and Kansas doesn’t, but the basic thrust of the report is likely to be much the same.

    That’s because in both states, the Center for Climate Strategies runs the show. Or, as one columnist wrote in Stupid environmentalist tricks in College Park:

    The MCCC [Maryland Climate Change Commission] itself is a kangaroo court conceived and controlled by the Center for Climate Strategies, a subsidiary of an avowed alarmist advocacy group posing as a disinterested technical consultant. If you want a sneak peek at what is in store for Maryland, just look at CCS’ other state reports; the recommendations are all nearly identical.

    It will be interesting to see just how little the report prepared for Kansas differs from the cookie-cutter reports prepared for other states whose governors have been foolish enough to let this radical environmentalist group operate in their states.

  • Center For Climate Strategies in Kansas: Good Economic Analysis?

    As the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group deliberates over the future of the environment in Kansas, we ought to examine the quality of the work product that the Center for Climate Strategies has produced in other states.

    The Beacon Hill Institute has performed an analysis of some of the work CCS has performed, and the results are troubling. This press release contains a link to the study document. This study is short at six pages, and I would encourage you to read the entire document.

    One of the things CCS does is to claim that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is actually good economic strategy, using cost-benefit analysis. The Beacon Hiss Institute report, however, finds three serious flaws with the methodology CCS used in its Arizona work. Specifically, CCS fails to quantify benefits meaningfully, misinterprets costs to be benefits, and its estimates of costs leave out important factors.

    To me, the misinterpretation of costs as being benefits is a common mistake that these studies make. They often point to the jobs that will be created, as though that in itself is a good. But workers need to be paid, and often the source of that pay is not considered.

  • Kansas Political Make-Work

    A Lawrence Journal-World editorial wonders why, at a time the Kansas Legislature is asked to reduce its administrative spending, a committee is studying why gasoline prices are high: Political fuel: An interim study of gasoline prices in Kansas looks more political than practical.

  • Kansas owns the carbon, says the governor

    Sometimes I read about the things Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius says and I wonder how does she arrive at such outlandish conclusions.

    An example is in the article Gov. Sebelius gives interview to Grist about KS coal controversy, where our governor says this regarding a proposed coal-fired power plant expansion in Kansas: “Very little of the power that was scheduled to be produced was for Kansas. It actually was electricity that would be exported to Colorado and Texas, yet we would own the carbon. ”

    What does it mean to “own the carbon”? I thought it was called global warming, and that the source of the carbon doesn’t matter. It affects the entire globe. That’s why environmentalists in America are concerned about the rapid growth of coal-fired power plants in China. That Chinese carbon — if in fact it affects the global climate — is just as harmful as that produced in Kansas.

    So what does it mean to Kansans that “we would own the carbon”?

    Then, doesn’t Kansas benefit from exporting things that people in other states want to buy? Perhaps we should stop growing all the excess wheat that Kansans can’t consume themselves and let our wheat fields regress to their native, unplowed state. Perhaps the ancient buffalo habitat around Wichita, now covered with aircraft plants producing airplanes primarily for export out of Kansas, should be restored.

  • KEEP’s Goal is Predetermined and Ineffectual

    Earlier this year, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius created the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or KEEP. Its goal, as stated in the press release announcing its creation, is to “…explore opportunities in all sectors of our economy to accomplish the goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions…”

    Nancy Jackson of the Climate and Energy Project echoed these marching orders in her recent Wichita Eagle opinion piece.

    This predetermined goal, difficult as it will be to achieve, means nothing to the earth’s climate. What Kansas could do, even if we took the most drastic measure possible, is canceled by the action of others.

    As reported in Science Daily, “The growth in China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is far outpacing previous estimates … Auffhammer [one of the study’s authors] said this paper should serve as an alarm challenging the widely held belief that actions taken by the wealthy, industrialized nations alone represent a viable strategy towards the goal of stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide.”

    The increase in China’s emissions is staggering and swamps any attempt at reductions by other countries, much less a small state like Kansas. From 2000 to 2010, it is estimated that China’s growth in emissions will be about five times larger than the reductions pledged in the Kyoto Protocol.

    How does the growth in China’s emissions compare to Kansas’ emissions? According to the Energy Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2005 Kansas produced about 78 million metric tons of carbon emissions from all sources.

    Then, according the source in Science Daily, China’s average annual growth in emissions in the current decade is about 60 million tons. So even if Kansas stopped producing all carbon emissions, the effect would be overcome in about 16 months of just the growth in China’s emissions. This doesn’t take into account the huge emissions China already produces, or the rapid growth in other countries.

    The reality is that any reduction or even slowing of the growth of carbon emissions in Kansas is meaningless in the context of global emissions. We in Kansas need to ask why our governor and radical environmentalists like Nancy Jackson are willing to sacrifice the economy of Kansas for this ineffectual goal.

  • At Least We’re Not Johnson County

    Commentary from Kansas Liberty about trouble at the Kansas City Star and the miserable Johnson County Sun.

    All the gas, but none of the warmth. What does the Kansas City Star have in common with the Johnson County Sun? Right! They’re both named, appropriately, after masses of incandescent gasses. Also, they hate conservatives. The Star is owned by McClatchy, whose share price is now loose change, down a nickel in late trading. One day soon, the Star will implode, its presses will stop and it will flicker on as a dim website.

    The Sun, on the other hand, was never very bright. Today, it’s part of a cluster of nearly invisible local papers that orbit the black hole of publisher Steve Rose’s notorious ego, a huge sucking thing from which no light escapes. For scientific proof, here‘s a list of his favorite candidates. The theme: If it can’t be a “moderate,” please God gives us a Democrat. The number of comments on that page after three days (that would be zero) demonstrates how Rose is able to excite his readers and stir their passions.

  • Kansas Climate Profile: Cause For Alarm?

    The Science and Public Policy Institute has released a series of state climate profiles. The Kansas Climate Profile is very interesting to read, especially in light of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and the creation of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, or (KEEP).

    One of the things that I’ve not been able to understand is how people believe that what we do in Kansas — like denying a permit for a coal-fired power plant — can have any impact on the global climate. After all, we are just a small part of the planet, and some large countries show no inclination to slow down their production of increasing quantities of greenhouse gases.

    Just how small is the contribution of Kansas to global carbon dioxide emissions? Vanishingly small: “… even a complete cessation of all CO2 emissions in Kansas would be entirely subsumed by rising global emissions in about one month’s time.” So we in Kansas could stop all production of carbon dioxide from all sources, and in one month our sacrifice would be canceled.

    Another interesting item from the report is this: “Future projections indicate that Kansas will be less impacted by rising global temperatures — natural or otherwise — than any other state in the country.”

    As KEEP conducts its meetings that are directed by a group with a clear ideological bent, will it be exposed to information like this?

  • Kansans’ Opposition to Coal Plant: Look at the Poll

    We’ve been told that Kansas public opinion is against the building of a coal-fired power plant in western Kansas. See the press release at Kansans Support Denial of Coal Plants, Want Wind Power for New Electricity.

    I would encourage you to view the questions that appeared on the poll cited in the press release. Here’s one, where people were asked which statement comes closer to their point of view:

    Statement A: Now more than ever we need to commit to alternative energy sources such as electric power generated by wind. We have the technology, if we only have the political will to invest sufficiently in it.

    Statement B: Wind energy is a nice idea, but it is ultimately insufficient to meet much of our energy needs. And placing huge wind turbines all over our beautiful rural landscapes is hardly the path to sound environmental stewardship. We need to focus our efforts on more practical sources of energy.

    Do you consider these two questions to be loaded, in that they use imagery designed to generate a certain response? Statement A refers to “political will,” something that most people are in favor of. Who doesn’t want more “political will?” Besides, what we need is private investment in electricity generation, not political investment.

    Statement B implies that “huge wind turbines” spoil our “beautiful rural landscapes” in Kansas and is poor “stewardship.” Powerful words, aren’t they?

    In my opinion, this question is designed to produce agreement biased towards statement A. It could not be more blatant.

  • Who Owns and Runs the KEEP Website?

    The Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group (KEEP) has an impressive-looking website located at ksclimatechange.us. Just by looking at it, you’d think it was an official State of Kansas website, complete with a photograph of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius and our state seal.

    But who actually owns this website? A check reveals that the domain name is registered to a Thomas D. Peterson of Fairfax, Virginia. He also owns a few other domain names, including mnclimatechange.us, scclimatechange.us, flclimatechange.us, and wiclimatechange.us. These, of course, are websites for the states of Minnesota, South Carolina, Florida, and Wisconsin.

    What does this mean? For me, it raises a question as to who is really running KEEP. Will the process be something that will benefit the people of Kansas, giving full recognition to what makes Kansas different from other states? Or is Kansas just another cog in the extremist Center for Climate Strategies machine?