Reprinted in full from Harris News:
State’s regulatory approach on CO2 still evolving
By Chris Green
TOPEKA — The state’s approach to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions remains a work in progress following last year’s unprecedented decision to deny air-quality permits for two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.
A year after the ruling by the state’s top environmental regulator, the state still lacks written guidelines that require firms to report their CO2 emissions or establish what levels of the greenhouse gas could be considered harmful.
However, three groups within state government have commenced studies of energy and environmental issues, including two that are specifically looking for ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming.
In addition, the Kansas Department of Health and Environmental has started asking some companies to voluntary report their CO2 emissions, even as it awaits further guidance from the federal government on carbon emission regulations.
In nixing permits for the proposed Holcomb expansion project by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. and its partners last year, Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby cited the estimated 11 millions tons of carbon dioxide that the Hays-based utility’s plants would emit each year.
Scientists have linked the greenhouse gas to global warming and Bremby said he couldn’t ignore growing data about the dangers it presented. He also promised his ruling would be the first step in an emerging effort to address carbon emissions.
There are no state or federal regulations regarding carbon dioxide and so far, Sunflower has been the only applicant to see its permit request denied by KDHE because of the amount of CO2 being emitted by its proposal.
One company, Topeka-based Westar Energy, has received air-quality operating and construction permits for its coal-fired Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Marys after entering into an agreement with KDHE earlier this year to voluntarily measure and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.
However, the operating permits for 13 other coal-fired generators up-and-running in the state — including the existing Holcomb plant — remain under the agency’s review, according to information provided by KDHE spokeswoman Maggie Thompson.
Supporters of the project, including the Legislature’s top Republican leaders, have seized on the uniqueness of the Sunflower ruling to argue that the cooperative utility’s permits have been unfairly denied.
The company is presently challenging Bremby in an administrative appeal that could ultimately wind up before the Kansas Supreme Court sometime next year.
Earl Watkins, Sunflower president and chief executive officer, said that because his company met all existing laws and rules, it has a right to the permits for the plants.
Bremby’s decision to deny permission for the plants’ construction has created uncertainty not just for Sunflower but other companies that might want to locate their significant projects in Kansas, Watkins said.
“You’re going to go someplace else where you understand there’s regulatory certainty,” Watkins said. “I think it’s impossible to measure the damage to the state of Kansas as result of this, because how do you measure that someone did not come that was planning on it?”
Ongoing studies
But Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and KDHE officials have denied accusations that the ruling has created uncertainty in the state and cite the issuance of 574 permits by the agency since last October as evidence of that.
Bremby has also said he based his decision in part on a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that deemed CO2 a pollutant. He also cited a state attorney general’s opinion giving him broad authority to protect the environment and human health, even in the absence of state or federal regulations.
Environmentalists have hailed Bremby’s decision as a landmark ruling, saying it was the first time that a regulator has cited global warming as a reason for blocking a coal plant.
Bruce Nilles, national coal campaign director for the Sierra Club, said the “watershed” ruling has paved the way for other states to recognize the need to limit CO2 emissions.
He notes that an top energy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told Bloomberg, a business news service, last week that Obama would classify CO2 as a “dangerous pollutant,” should he be elected president.
Nilles said that possibility would be a natural extension of Bremby’s decision in Kansas.
“We’ve seen it become a national issue in a way that it really wasn’t before and Kansas really helped make that important,” Nilles said of the need to limit carbon emissions.
But Tom Gross, air monitoring and planning chief at KDHE, said the agency is still waiting for guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has been looking at how to catalog and regulate greenhouse gases since last year’s Supreme Court decision.
While the state hasn’t moved forward with trying to limit the carbon emissions of other projects on its own, it has started to research the footprint of companies operating in the state.
Thompson said the agency has also mailed out a survey to various firms, offering them an opportunity to voluntary report their CO2 emissions. After the request, KDHE received 125 responses, including 22 from firms that had not even been mailed a survey. She said that 55 recipients did not respond.
Bremby specifically cited the importance of the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group, which Sebelius created earlier this year through an executive order.
That panel, which Bremby is an ex-officio member of, is presently working with a Pennsylvania consultant, the Center for Climate Strategies, to develop a climate action plan for Kansas. The group’s initial report is due to come out in January.
The Kansas Energy Council is also studying smaller scale ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including a controversial proposal to lower the state’s maximum speed-limit on highways from 65 mph to 55 mph.
Legislative leaders have also created a special committee of their own to study energy and environmental policy.
Bremby said such discussions would be critical for the state to both address global warming and develop a sound energy policy for the future of Kansas.
“I am convinced that working together through these comprehensive process, which include the critical element of public input, we as a state can create policies that serve us well now and into the future.”
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