Web posted
Monday, March 10, 2008
Trimmer opposed energy bill
By DAVE SEATON
Winfield Publishing
Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, voted against the bill to authorize expansion of the Sunflower Electric Corp. plant at Holcomb because he considered it a "Trojan Horse."
The bill, passed and sent to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius late last week, voids a decision by the secretary of health and environment to deny a permit for the plant. Sebelius has said she would veto the bill.
State Sen. Greta Goodwin, D-Winfield, and State Rep. Kasha Kelley, R-Arkansas City, voted for the measure.
Trimmer said Friday he feared if the bill became law Kansas would become the coal-fired supplier of electricity to surrounding states.
"Other states like Colorado would get our energy while we got the carbon dioxide," Trimmer said. A large share of the Holcomb's plants energy would go to Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.
Those states are not building new coal-fired plants, Trimmer said, nor is Missouri.
Trimmer said he also opposed the bill because it took regulatory powers away from the Kansas Corporation Commission and gave them to the Legislature.
In particular, Trimmer said, he opposed a provision that nullified the KCC's power to require a utility to pay for improvements without passing the cost on to ratepayers.
"This problem wasn't obvious in the language (of the bill)," Trimmer said, "but I confirmed it with (the) legislative research (service). Under the bill all those costs could be borne by ratepayers."
If the two plants proposed at Holcomb are not built, Trimmer said, Kansas will still be able to meet its need for electricity. This is true although it will take time for alternative sources to come on line. "I don't think we're at a critical point where we're going to face brownouts or anything like that," Trimmer said.
The bill that emerged from a Senate-House conference was "heavy handed" in Trimmer's words. He called it the opening salvo in the bargaining for a better outcome than either Sunflower or the governor and her allies had now.
"This is just the beginning," Trimmer said.
In order to make progress toward any compromise, Trimmer said, there is a need for flexibility by both parties. Trimmer recognized Sunflower needed a large market area to attract financing for the Holcomb project.
On the matter of Kansas setting emission standards higher than federal standards, which the bill prohibits without previous legislative approval,
Trimmer said, he saw a need for "some flexibility" on the governor's part. Although the House had attached several environmentally friendly measures to
the bill, including a requirement that utilities increase their output of alternative energy, those "green" measures were stripped out when the conference report came back to the House.
This "heavy-handed" step may have been intended to set up a strong position for future negotiation, Trimmer said. It also reflected the depth of feeling on the issue among western Kansas lawmakers, he said.
Trimmer acknowledged that denial of the Holcomb permit left the regulatory picture in Kansas clouded. The Legislature is not likely to clarify this picture, he said."We need regulatory consistency in CO2 and other emissions, but I can't see us doing this in Topeka today. That's not where we're headed."
Goodwin said she believed the secretary of health and environment lacked authority to deny a permit for the expansion.
"I do not think we can have any agency head using personal opinions to make energy policy for the state of Kansas," Goodwin said Friday.
Goodwin indicated she was appalled by the rumors of promises for votes that circulated in the capital.
Without being specific, she said the intensity of the horse trading for votes was greater than anything she had seen. "I have never seen...the atmosphere...and such offerings of things to be done in your district. I do not like the atmosphere on this bill," Goodwin said.
Both opponents and proponents of the bill were involved in the promises, she said.
The report on the bill from a conference between the Senate and the House passed the Senate with 32 votes, enough to override a promised veto by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The House apparently lacks enough votes to override.
Goodwin said she hated to vote against Sebelius, who has campaigned for her in two elections. The vote this week on the Holcomb plant was just the beginning of a process, Goodwin agreed. The Legislature needed to look ahead to policies that would deal with emissions such as carbon dioxide in Kansas, she said.
Goodwin did not share the view voiced by Rep. Ed Trimmer and others that too much of the energy from an expanded Holcomb plant would go out of state. Kansas would benefit more than any other state if the plant were expanded, she said.
The bill Goodwin supported contained strong language requiring Sunflower Electric Corp. and its partners to sequester or recycle carbon dioxide, Goodwin said. She did not see the Holcomb plant as proscribed by the bill as an environmental disaster. "I didn't see where we were going to suffer air quality damage," she said.
When it came to the possibility of a compromise between Sunflower, the owner of the Holcomb plant, and the governor and her allies, Goodwin said she did not see much room for flexibility on the part of Sebelius.
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