Climate and energy

Kansas Energy Council mixes it up. OK, so greenhouse gas regulation is coming, including regulation of carbon dioxide. Should Kansas sit and wait for feds to act? Should it act itself? Should it get prepared, regardless?

The Kansas Energy Council addressed these issues on Monday (TCJournal). Those who attended the meetings (including CEP Executive Director Nancy Jackson) offered observations on the choices before the KEC.

Liz Brosius, executive director of the Kansas Energy Council, said all options for reducing the state’s carbon footprint would be costly.

“Tackling global warming will be expensive,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of resistance as we begin to make things more expensive. Political considerations loom large.”

Nancy Jackson, executive director of the Climate and Energy Project at the Land Institute in Salina, said the type of face-to-face discussion about greenhouse emissions that occurred Wednesday among energy council members representing environmental groups; state government; and the refinery, trucking, housing and utility industries would help set the foundation for implementation of a national system.

“If you’re not at the table for the discussion,” she said, “you’re on the menu later.”

Jackson said Kansas was positioned to be a big winner in a rapidly changing energy economy. The state has massive underground formations where carbon could be stored rather than released to the air, she said. Greenhouse gases pumped below the surface could improve oil recovery in some areas, she said.

In addition, the state has solid potential for power production from wind and solar facilities and through burning biomass from crop residue or prairie grasses.

“We’re stuck in the ‘we’re going to lose’ mentality,” Jackson said. “Kansas should be a net winner.”

Pressure to change vote on coal plants. As reported in the Wichita Eagle by Randy Schofield, Wichita legislator and Republican Dale Swenson is feeling the heat to change his “no” vote on the Holcomb plants.

When you read the story, you begin get an idea of how intense this pressure is. More or less, Swenson’s position on the plants is, as Schofield describes it: “He’s not dead set against a new coal plant, but he’s not convinced, either, that Holcomb is the right project.” It’s a very even-handed look at the pros and cons

Reminder from CEP: Support your legislators for their votes that you like, as well as the ones you don’t. These people work under great pressure – regardless of your views on this particular issue, please do TELL THEM THANK YOU.

For how legislators voted on the most recent Holcomb vote, and for how to contact them, please check here.

KDHE Secretary Bremby speaks on his decision to deny the coal plant permits. In particular, he discusses the importance of the recent Supreme Court decision that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant (AP/ Joplin Globe). (It appears that they will probably not take concrete action to do so under this administration.) Quotable:

But Bremby said the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision was crucial because the state’s air-quality laws are tied to the federal Clean Air Act. Deciding that CO2 wasn’t a factor would have created “a complete disconnect.”

Bremby decided in October to deny an air-quality permit to Sunflower Electric Power Corp. for the two plants.

“I think it was a typical permitting decision until the Supreme Court decision suggested that CO2 needed to be considered as a pollutant,” Bremby said. “The science was really insufficient for the decision. It was the science coupled with the interpretation of federal law by the Supreme Court.”

The court decision in question was about carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Critics charge that it doesn’t apply to carbon dioxide emissions from other sources. Supporters say a pollutant is a pollutant – ie, mercury is regulated across all industries – and that this court decision will be used as a sanction for future carbon dioxide regulation from all sorts of industrial and transportation sources.

Regardless, this point will lead to further litigation. Bremby spoke to this as well:

“We anticipated litigation, regardless of the decision, and so we wanted to make sure that we factored in everything possible,” Bremby said. “We had to factor that (the Supreme Court decision) in.”

Bremby said while the Department of Health and Environment staff who handle air-quality permit continued its work on Sunflower’s application, another team reviewed the U.S. Supreme Court decision and whether it applied.

“As you might imagine, we had mixed views internally,” he said. “Pro or con, we knew that there would be litigation.”

Bremby also noted that for all the authority granted to him under Kansas law, the attorney general’s office told him he couldn’t do one thing — push back the Dec. 1 deadline for ruling on Sunflower’s permit application to consider more information.

“The portion of this that I have the most difficult time reconciling — and I think this is the matter that will ultimately be determined in the courts — is the timing,” he said. “Unfortunately, there’s a Supreme Court decision, there’s the science that’s moving; we have a permit that we can’t stop.”

He added: “Not withstanding all that, I felt it was the right decision at the right time for the right reasons.”

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org