To the editor:

Your Monday edition provided a great public service with the front page item about Kansas House Bill 2014, which is presented as “green jobs” legislation but actually is intended to overturn previous decisions and enable two 700-megawatt, coal-burning power plants to be built near Holcomb.

Making matters worse, the Kansas Chamber had blanketed the state with slick “stealth” postcards that tout the bill as a jobs bill. The truth is that, if the plants ever get running, they will provide only a few jobs, unless we include health care workers that are treating the increased cases of respiratory illness due to the pollution. The plants will be built mostly by out-of-state firms that have their own workers who pay taxes in their home states. (The latest segment of new U.S. Highway 59 between Ottawa and the Douglas County line is being built by a Mississippi firm.)

The Kansas Chamber caved in to the narrow interests of power industry firms with deep pockets instead of holding to their charter regarding civic responsibility.

Graham Kreicker,
Lawrence