I just came from a meeting of the Franklin County Commission where the three commissioners voted to change county regs to allow a coal ash landfill in the Missouri River floodplain. I don’t know whether to scream or cry.
Shame on these three bumbling, ignorant jackasses. From the start of this charade two years ago, the public was told not to mention Ameren or the Labadie Bottoms in their public comments because “we’re just talking about changing the regulations, not a specific case.” Of course, the only reason they were discussing the changes was because Ameren wants to build a 400 acre coal ash dump next to their 40 yr old plant in Labadie. Go to http://www.leomo.info to see a photo of the smokestacks in the distance surrounded by lush, beautiful floodplain vegetation and animal habitat. During the 1993 flood, the plant was surrounded by water.
I was so impressed with the testimony and comments by members of the public this morning. Intelligent, powerful, inspiring short speeches that made it even more incredible that these three brainless, heartless jerks could vote AYE.
I said to them as I left, “This will come back to haunt you. Shame on you. You cannot destroy God’s beautiful creation without it coming back to haunt you.”
The fight is not over, but one thing for sure. Those three will never be elected to anything ever again. Of course John Griesheimer doesn’t care because he’s probably got a job already lined up with Ameren. What goes around comes around. And I’ll be happy to see the three of them reap what they have sown.
As predicted, the Senate Commerce Committee passed the CWIP bill.
Two committee members offered amendments. The version offered by Senator John Griesheimer, R-Washington, would have simplified the bill from 24 pages to one page, but the bottom line was the same: it would have repealed the CWIP legislation the people passed by 63 percent in 1976. That was a no go. The version that was passed was written by Senator Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, who actually made a few substantive changes.
The new bill, written by Sen. Kurt Schaefer, R-Columbia, gives the Public Service Commission more time to decide on whether or not to approve a new nuclear plant. The original bill allowed three months for the process – the new bill makes it 12 months for initial approval and another 11 months for the facility review process.
The new bill also requires the utility to obtain the necessary permits before applying for the facility review.
The bill has been “fixed”. Sort of. Like a slovenly woman who has painted one fingernail to dress herself up.
This bill still has a runner in its stockings, a slip with torn lace peeking beneath the skirt, mismatched shoes, smeared lipstick, frizzy hair, and too much mascara. For instance:
– It would allow electric companies – not just AmerenUE, but every utility company that builds a new power plant – to get automatic rate increases every three months without having to hold hearings to justify the higher prices.
– Over the 10 years of construction for AmerenUE’s new nuclear plant, rates would increase between 29 percent and 40 percent, according to an estimate by the Missouri Public Counsel’s office, which represents utility customers before the Missouri Public Service Commission. That increase, coming during a recession and before the plant produces its first watt of electricity, could drive some businesses into bankruptcy and further depress the state economy.
And that’s just the ladder in the stockings and the slip. The P-D editorial paints the whole ugly picture and it’s worth a read.
In the 6-4 vote, two Republicans joined senators Joan Bray, D-St. Louis, and Jolie Justus, D-K.C., in voting against the bill: Senator Jim Lembke, St. Louis, and Senator Luann Ridgeway, Smithville. Tim Green, D-St. Louis, co-sponsored the bill, presumably to satisfy construction trade unions.
The committee vote is over now, but Griesheimer is unhappy on just about every count. He told Tony Messenger that “‘If this bill hits the Senate floor as it is now, it’s dead on arrival.'” Presumably, he thinks his version would have stood a better chance in the Senate than Schaefer’s. Why, I do not know. Furthermore, he and Lager are disgusted with the bill’s opponents for hitting the air with an ad during the last Mizzou game of the NCAA tournament. Griesheimer characterized the ad as having “lies and distortions”. Feel free to decide for yourself whether that’s so:
So we lost the committee vote (thanks, by the way, to Bray, Justus, Lembke, and Ridgeway), but the prospects don’t look good for passage in the full Senate. Even if it squeaks out of there, Nixon’s pen is poised. And if worse comes to worst, there’s always the possibility of another ballot initiative to stop Ameren and the other utilities from this power grab.
They may think they can arrange to deal themselves a regulatory royal flush, but we’re not playing poker with them. We’re playing bridge–and holding the high trump cards.
Uh-oh. Your organization’s got trouble when an anti-choice senator says this about you:
“I wouldn’t spit on Missouri Right to Life if they were on fire,” the usually affable Griesheimer said. “They are a bunch of liars who don’t care about anything but themselves.”
Hello. What’s going on? I mean, aside from the fact that abortion isn’t the obsession it used to be with some voters before the economy tanked.
What’s going on is that Missouri Right to Life overplayed its hand. E-v-e-r-y y-e-a-r, Pam Fichter’s bunch tells the legislature what new restrictions to pass, and e-v-e-r-y y-e-a-r, the Missouri Supreme Court throws out a good deal of it as unconstitutional. Even if you’re anti-abortion, it gets to be embarrassing to keep voting for this crap.
Sen. Jolie Justus, a Kansas City Democrat who led efforts to tone down the abortion restrictions proposed this year, said she detected an emerging attitude that lawmakers have restricted abortion about as much as they can.
“There is a feeling that now it’s becoming a political game,” Justus said. “Several pro-life senators told me, ‘What’s the next thing? Are they going to want us to restrict three-legged blue people from having abortions on Tuesdays?'”
The small rift between the Senate “Griesheimers” and Missouri Right to Life suffered a seismic shift about 7.0 on the Richter Scale last year. Fichter’s group opposed funding for new science buildings in KC and Columbia because–who knows?–somebody might someday do some stem cell research in one of them.
Some anti-choice senators voted for the funding anyway–and saw their ratings from the group tank. Meanwhile, some pro-choice senators voted against the funding because it was taking money from MOHELA. Those senators got higher scores than the “Griesheimers.”
Color the anti-choice senators irate.
And then this year, the give-the-finger-to-the-constitution anti-choicers saddled their side with a proposal that banned “coerced abortions.” It would have made it illegal for a husband or boyfriend to try to persuade his significant other to have an abortion.
Umm, the first amendment lets people talk to each other, particularly about maybe doing something that’s … legal.
Another of the “Griesheimers”, Mike Gibbons, pointed out that the law would let a woman decide, years after the fact, that she regretted having an abortion and let her then allege that a crime had occurred. How could such an allegation be proven?
So legislation that passed resoundingly (113-33) in the House died in the Senate–where cooler heads sometimes manage to prevail in regards to rotten bills.
All that was left of this year’s debacle was for Sarah Steelman to try making some political hay by calling for a Special Session to pass the bill. Oh, and while they’re at it, she wanted the legislators to make sex-selective abortions illegal. That Steelman, she loves playing to the balconies. She took her 13 year old son to buy a gun and talked about how much she loves the second amendment. (Not the first amendment, mind you, only the second. I call that amendment-selective aborting of the Constitution.)
SPARTANBURG, South Carolina (AP) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party’s conservative voters, said the law that legalized abortion should be overturned.
“I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned,” the Arizona senator on Sunday told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.
More than half of women voters think McCain is pro-choice. Wrong.
