Wampum

The Congress was in recess last week and Smoky Joe Barton (TX-06), now the ranking Republican member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, was doing pressers in the district. Here's Barton in the childishly simple Corsicanna Daily Sun:

Barton said the electrical bill on his Arlington house last month was $750, or about twice what it used to be in the winter. However, he said he testified in support of deregulating the power industry in Texas, and he continues to support it. Putting in the coal plants would allow the companies to be less reliant on natural gas, which has fluctuated in price and availability recently. Building all 16 coal plants at once is acceptable, because the technology falls within the current regulations for emissions, he said.

He said he’s also not worried about the greenhouse emission, CO2.

"It's not a pollutant," he said. "CO2 isn't dirty. It's a naturally occurring compound."

"In 20 years, the state might decide to go all nuclear, which has no emissions, or use technology like the Future-Gen coal-burning project, which would pump the pollution underground."

TXU has coal-fired electrical generation facilities at Brown Creek (Freestone County), Martin Lake (Rusk County), Monticello (Titus County), and (shared with Alcoa and usually not counted) at Sandow (Miliam County). It has permits and debit structured for 8 more.

Until yesterday. The TXU buy-out by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group, and Goldman Sachs abandons all 8 of the planned coal-fired facilities. Das Kapital has done what David Harris could not.

The rest of the interview is just as silly. Deport settled neighbors for statutory infractions, since they can always pay a fine, fill out the INS and the DHS paperwork while on "holiday" in Mexico and resettle without missing a single mortgage payment, because "amnesty undermines the law". Prevent coordinated medical drug purchasing by the largest buyer group, because it would empower ""one federal bureaucrat".

He's got some funny things to say about the SCHIP re-authorization too, but not to the local press, which I'll write up later in the week.