Fighting Dirty

On October 18, the Kansas Department of health and Environment denied an air quality permit for two proposed Sunflower Electric Power Corp. coal plants. Kansans For Affordable Energy (which is funded by Sunflower, along with Peabody Coal Company) then ran the following ad in newspapers across Kansas:


The ad did not mention that "Kansas currently export[s] natural gas to other states." Nor did it mention that "[t]he United States does not currently import natural gas from Russia, Venezuela or Iran."

Kansas governor Kathleen Sebellius (D-KS) responded to this "over the top nonsense":

Anyone who would associate our state with the controversial and disreputable world leaders pictured in this ad fundamentally misunderstands and disrespects the people of Kansas.

The Wichita Eagle, however, had a better response here. The accompanying video can be found here.