Web posted
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Negotiators agree on coal plant bill
By JOHN HANNA
Associated Press Writer
TOPEKA (AP) -- Legislative negotiators agreed Wednesday on a bill allowing two coal-fired plants in southwest Kansas, and supporters hoped for a quick vote in the House.
The measure also would limit the power of the state's top environmental regulator to set new air-pollution standards and limit his ability to deny air-quality permits for proposed power plants.
But the three senators and three House members writing the final version of the bill also included several ''green'' provisions. Those provisions are designed to win over legislators who are nervous about coal-fired plants' potential carbon dioxide emissions, which many scientists link to global warming.
The negotiators added a provision in their last round of talks, one designed to encourage utilities to develop programs that help consumers cut their power use. The bill already included a mandate that renewable resources, such as wind, account for 10 percent of investor-owned utilities' and electric cooperatives generating capacity by 2012.
The bill would allow Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and two out-of-state partners to build the two coal-fired plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County. The $3.6 billion project has bipartisan legislative support but has been blocked since October by Rod Bremby, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' secretary of health and environment.
Sebelius strongly objects to provisions limiting the secretary's power, and the negotiators expect her to veto the bill. Supporters hope it will pass with two-thirds majorities in both chambers, what they would need to override a veto.
''Governor Sebelius has been very clear about elements of a bill she will support -- and elements that she would not accept,'' spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran said. ''Stripping the powers of the KDHE secretary is one of those key elements that make it impossible for her to support a bill.''
One negotiator, Rep. Annie Kuether, a Topeka Democrat, also dislikes some of the language dealing with the secretary's power. Before they can consider the bill, both chambers must first take a procedural vote allowing them to suspend a rule requiring unanimous agreement among negotiators.
But supporters expected to prevail on those procedural votes. And Rep. Carl Dean Holmes, a Republican from Liberal who is the House's lead negotiator, said the House would take an up-or-down vote on the bill late Wednesday afternoon. The Senate would vote last, but the timing for that vote was uncertain.
Supporters of Sunflower's project argue that it's vital to meet the state's future power needs and represents important economic development. But they also contend Bremby's decision to block the project represented an unprecedented attempt to regulate CO2 without legislative approval -- or having any written standards.
''The legislation here properly restates existing law and ensure that the KDHE process is fair,'' said Lee Boughey, a spokesman for one of Sunflower's partners, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, a Westminster, Colo., electric cooperative. ''It ensures that the law is applied fairly.''
When Bremby refused to issue Sunflower and its partners an air-quality permit, he cited the plants' potential CO2 emissions and said the state couldn't ignore the changes associated with global warming. The plants could produce up to 11 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, though Sunflower says the figure could be as low as 4.5 million tons with technology it plans to employ.
Environmentalists still oppose the bill because of that, no matter what green provisions are included.
''The issue of carbon dioxide still needs to be addressed, and it hasn't been,'' said Tom Thompson, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club's state chapter. ''I hope legislators that have voted against this bill will see through this.''
The negotiations had temporarily stalled over one green provision that said that if the state or federal government ever impose any CO2 standards, utilities must use the best available technology to the greenhouse gas.
One of the negotiators, Rep. Rob Olson, an Olathe Republican, strongly opposes any CO2 limits, fearing they would hurt the state's economy. He balked at the language, but on Wednesday, he said he would sign off on the final version of the bill.
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Energy legislation is the Conference Committee Report on House Sub for SB 327.
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