Sam Brownback links(Seattle Times) To really save on gas, hybrid car grows tail: At a recent forum sponsored by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center, former CIA Director James Woolsey and U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., touted plug-ins (cars) as a relatively quick road to energy independence. Would they mean more pollution from coal-fired power plants? No, backers say, because power plants have enough unused capacity at night to charge millions of vehicles.(Heritage.org commentary) The Stop Over-Spending Act: A Real Opportunity to Limit Spending: President Ronald Reagan once said that a government program is the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see. Outdated programs created decades ago to address problems that no longer exist still receive annual appropriations. Washington currently funds 342 economic development programs, 130 programs for the disabled, and 130 programs for at-risk youth, and yet Congress continues to layer new programs on top of existing ones. The S.O.S. Act includes Senator Sam Brownback’s (R-KS) CARFA proposal to create an independent commission that presents Congress with a list of all duplicative, wasteful, outdated, and failed programs that should be eliminated. Like the commission formed to close military bases a decade ago, this proposal would require lawmakers to vote up or down on an entire package of program terminations, thus preventing Members from trying to preserve their own special-interest programs.How to contact As always, you can find information to contact members of the Kansas congressional delegation here.