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NEWS from the Kansas Natural Resource Council |
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POLL SHOWS STRONG SUPPORT The Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy released the results of a new poll on Monday February 16, 2009 that shows strong statewide support for tapping our wind resource and strong opposition to new coal plants in the state.
Are our legislators listening?
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History of the hOLCOMB BILLS IN 2009 On Friday January 30, 2009 HB 2182 was introduced in the Kansas House that would enable the Holcomb coal plant expansion. The bill would proscribe KDHE from enforcing regulations on any contaminants that are not regulated by the federal government and forbid any state standards more stringent than federal standards. It would apply retroactively to Sec. Bremby’s Holcomb decision of October 17, 2007, and give him only 15 days to act on a resubmitted permit application. The language from 2182 became part of Substitute HB 2014 on Friday February 13. This bill was amended and then passed in the full House on Friday February 27, but five votes short of a veto-proof majority. The vote was 79-44, with 2 Absent or Not Voting. The bill moved to the Senate, where it was sent to the Utilities Committee, which did a gut-and-go on it, stripping out the House language and replacing it with the language of SB 265 (see below). The bill was now much shorter with fewer provisions, but the essential purpose was still to enable the construction of two new coal power plants at Holcomb. The bill became officially titled Senate Substitute for House Substitute 2014. After floor debate and some amendments, it was approved 31-9 in the Senate on March 5. A Conference Committee was appointed to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions. It reported the bill back out on March 27. Final passage occurred in the Senate on April 2 on a vote of 31-7, with 2 Absent or Not Voting. The House approved it the next day by a vote of 74-48, with 3 Absent or Not Voting - TEN votes short of a veto-proof majority. Sub. 2014 was vetoed by Governor Sebelius on April 13. The text of the veto statement is below. Then things got strange. The pro-Holcomb forces, as expected, vowed to try over-riding the veto in the legislature's final session, yet it seemed certain there were not sufficient votes in the House to get that done. In the meantime, Gov. Sebelius was nominated by President Obama to become Secretary of Health & Human Services, she accepted the nomination and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, April 28. Lt. Governor Parkinson became Governor the same day when Gov. Sebelius resigned to take her new position in the federal government. Parkinson promptly began a backroom deal with Sunflower on an agreement which settled the dispute over the coal plant expansion outside the legislative process. This agreement was signed Monday, May 4, and announced in a 3:30 PM press conference that day.
In a nutshell, it will allow the construction of a single 895 Mw plant, and allow Sunflower to reapply for a second unit April 30, 2011. While the agreement also includes "requirements" for Sunflower to pursue carbon emissions reduction from the coal plant, wind power, energy efficiency and new transmission lines, these stipulations have many built-in loopholes that can allow Sunflower to avoid complying with them. (See link to Craig Volland's analysis below) As part of the deal, the legislature had to pass a package of measures including nearly all of what was in the previous Holcomb Bills or the deal was off. The process began in the Senate the very next day, involving two consecutive gut-and-go maneuvers that produced Senate Substitute for House Bill 2369. 2369 was approved by the Senate on May 7 and the House concurred on May 8. As of this writing (May 17) it has not been signed into law, but since Parkinson essentially wrote this bill it is given he will sign it.
It was obvious as soon as the settlement deal was announced that "the fix was in". Even some utility lobbyists were blind-sided by it. The bill needed to resolve the legislative part of the package originated in the Senate, which had proportionately fewer members who might object to it and just fewer people - period - hence fewer minds to convince. In order to avoid any rules requirement for full hearings on the measure, defunct bills that had been heard and approved previously were grabbed as needed for the purpose. Since 2369 was not explicitly being used to get Holcomb built, seven of the nine Senators who had previously voted against 2014 switched to vote for 2369 on final passage. For similar reasons, the number of Nay votes on the concurrence vote on 2369 in the House decreased from 48 to 18 compared to the last vote on 2014, which shows the steamroller effect Parkinson's gambit had. See the vote tally here. What we are left with is:
SB 265
was introduced on Thursday February 12. Like Sub. 2014, it contained
some steps towards net metering, a Renewable Portfolio Standard,
etc., but it also included language specifically crafted to enable
construction of the new coal plants at Holcomb. 265 had another, brief, part to play in the session when it was used as a gut-and-go vehicle for the final version of the energy bill after the settlement deal was inked between Gov. Parkinson and Sunflower Electric. Due to the order of events and the Rules of the legislature, the contents of 265 were then inserted into HB 2369 in a subsequent gut-and-go in order to get the energy bill passed by the end of the wrap-up session. The legislative history of these, and all other bills we were tracking, is here. |
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2008 KANSAS ENVIRONMENTAL SCORECARD
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HOLCOMB
BILLS IN 2008
HISTORY of the HOLCOMB legislation IN 2008: A bill was introduced into the state legislature on January 30, 2008 that would overturn the decision made by KDHE Secretary Bremby October 17, 2007 to deny the air permit application for two new 700 megawatt coal-fired power plants near Holcomb. On the House side, the measure was HB 2711. On the Senate side, it was SB 515. They were identical. The legislation was created in secret by Rep. Carl Holmes, Sen. Jay Emler, Rep. Annie Kuether and Sen. Janis Lee. Secret that is, except to Sunflower Electric Company, the permit applicant, who had ample input into the drafting of the bill. Environmental interests were shut out of the process. The bill was introduced in extraordinary fashion on January 30, with both parties immediately adjourning into caucuses to discuss it before the bill re-entered the normal bill process. The bill was fast-tracked with an accelerated schedule of hearings February 4-7. Final committee mark-up was to occur Friday the 8th, but events during the hearings earlier in the week scuttled that plan. Proponents of the plant testified Monday & Tuesday, Feb. 4 & 5. Opponents and neutral parties testified Wednesday & Thursday, Feb. 6 & 7. A surprise development was opposition from ultraconservatives who saw the penalty of $3 per ton of released carbon as a new form of taxation. This latter development, and the fact that so many Kansas Republicans are in this anti-tax faction, may have been a key factor in Speaker Neufeld's decision to order Rep. Carl Holmes to not work the bill on Friday the 8th.
On Monday February 11, Senator Emler and other Holcomb supporters in the Senate Utilities Committee excised the pro-Holcomb language out of SB 515. This was then used to replace the language of HB 2066, which had previously passed the House and had been languishing in the committee since 2007. Sub. 2066 became the Holcomb Bill in the Senate and was approved in the Senate on Thursday February 14. It went to conference committee since the bill (in very different form), passed the House already. HB 2711 was thoroughly thrashed in the House Energy and Utilities Committee on Tuesday February 12, with the upshot being a similar strategy to what happened in the Senate the day before. A bill that had previously passed the Senate (SB 327) was gutted and the new language from 2711 was inserted into it. Sub. 327 became the Holcomb Bill in the House and was approved in the House on Tuesday February 19. It also went to conference committee to see if the differences between it and Sub 2066 could be worked out. The conferees were: Holmes, Emler, Lee and Kuether were the original authors of 2711/515 and Rep. Olson and Sen. Apple were reliable conservative Republicans who were expected to take a hard line against the Bremby decision. All of the conferees voted for the Holcomb Bill in their respective chambers except for Rep. Kuether. The conference committee could not reach unanimity on either bill and had to agree to disagree. Rep. Kuether was the lone vote against acceptance. Sub. 327 was then sent back to the legislature and it was approved in the House on March 5 and the Senate on March 6. The margin in the House was insufficient to override a veto by the Governor, but not in the Senate. Governor Sebelius vetoed Sub. 327 on March 21. On the same day she issued Executive Order 08-03, which creates a new "Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group". This body is tasked with developing an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions statewide from 1990 up to the present and goals for reducing those emissions from now to the year 2020. It will produce a progress report on its activities in January 2009 and a final report in 2010.
There were not enough votes in the House to override the veto. Recognizing that, proponents of Holcomb did yet another "gut and go" on SB 148 in the House Energy and Utilities committee on Monday, March 24 and put all the language of 327 into it along with some new text related to SOx and NOx emissions just to make it "significantly different" from 327. With this "new" bill, the proponents had a vehicle to carry the issue all the way to the end of the session. Sub. 148 was approved by the legislature on April 4. The Governor vetoed it on April 17.
The Senate voted to override the veto of 327 on April 3, but the House did not bring the override to a vote before adjourning. When the legislature reconvened for the "veto session" on April 30, 148 was advanced first by the pro-Holcomb forces by overriding the veto in the Senate. However, the veto override failed to garner enough votes in the House when it was brought to the floor on May 1. The possibility of a reconsideration vote on May 2 failed to materialize, and the veto was thus sustained. The House never got around to holding a veto override vote on 327, so the veto of 327 was sustained on May 3. In apparent realization that there were not enough votes to support an override of 327, Speaker Neufeld and Rep. Merrick introduced House Concurrent Resolution 5042 on Friday May 2, which called for the legislature to hire lawyers to sue the Governor over the permit decision. In addition, an economic development bill (2412) was amended to include the language of 148 on May 3. The Senate leadership said they would not vote on HCR 5042 and it was stricken from the House calendar on May 7. The negotiations on 2412 as well as the Omnibus spending bill both bogged down in conference committees and the House adjourned at 7:45 PM on May 3, much to the consternation of the Senate, which had been expecting both chambers would conclude their business that night. The House met again on Monday May 5 and did not take up 2412. The Senate passed 2412 on May 6, by 24-10, with six Senators absent or not voting. The House approved it on May 7 by 76-48. It was presented to Governor Sebelius on May 13 and she vetoed it on May 16.
Thursday, May 29, 2008 was Sine Die (Last day of the session). House Speaker Melvin Neufeld stated on Wednesday, May 21 that no override of 2412 would be attempted, and indeed that was true. Now, the struggle to prevent construction of this new source of atmospheric carbon shifts to the courts, where lawsuits challenging the KDHE denial of the Holcomb air permit are pending by Sunflower and its allies.
Here were the main features of the "Holcomb bills" with respect to the Holcomb decision:
The bill originally had some features attractive to environmental interests, which were grafted into this bill as an obvious tactic to force acceptance of the parts that don't pass the smell test.
The bill that came from the conference committee (Sub 327) and was approved by both chambers had a net metering section, as well as tax incentives for landlords to make energy efficiency improvements to rental units, a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and mandates for energy efficiency improvements to state buildings, vehicles and equipment and also a requirement that new generating plants must remove at least 80% of mercury from their stack emissions. All these ancillary features merit discussion on their own. They could - and should - be passed in separate legislation. In fact, many of these things were in other introduced bills this session. Combining them with the attempt to roll back the Holcomb decision merely showed how desperate the proponents of Holcomb were. They evidently did not believe their initiative would pass on its own. The people of Kansas deserve better. See below for
pointers on contacting your legislators.
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WALL STREET FIRM SAYS HOLCOMB EXPANSION WILL HARM SUNFLOWER RATEPAYERS
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a financial
services firm that evaluates non-traditional risk factors for
corporations, issued a startling report on March 24, 2008 singling out the
Holcomb plant expansion project as being a poor decision.
The report notes that:
The report goes on to state that if
carbon credits are auctioned off and if the price of carbon reaches only
$13.20 per ton, natural gas base load plants become equal in cost to
coal. If the price of carbon rises above that, natural gas plants
are cheaper than coal.
Click the icon to read the full report.
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SUNFLOWER FINANCIAL CONDITION QUESTIONED
Representative Henry Waxman,
Chair of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a
letter on February 14, 2008 to the Administrator of the USDA Rural Development
Utilities Program (RUS) expressing concern over whether the RUS is
taking into account the likelihood of future carbon regulations when
loaning money for new power plants. Sen. Waxman specifically
mentioned Sunflower Electric and the proposed new plants at Holcomb, stating:
It is worth noting here that Sunflower was carrying over $350 million in long-term debt at the end of 2006 - most of it due to the construction of Holcomb 1 over twenty years ago! It's no wonder that, during the hearing on HB 2711 in the House Energy and Utilities Committee, the CEO of Sunflower, Earl Watkins, stated that they could not afford to build a new power plant on their own - basically saying they can't afford to build the 200 MW they believe they need for their own projected demand growth, so they must partner with Tri-State to build 1,400 MW.
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The complete contact information
for every Senator - including postal
address, phone number and email -
The complete contact information
for every Representative - including postal
address, phone number and email -
Contact your legislators today and encourage them to support a Clean Energy Future for Kansas!
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KANSAS AGENCY
RULES AGAINST On October 18, 2007,
Roderick Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and
Environment (KDHE), denied an air pollution permit application for
building two new large coal-fired power plants in western Kansas near the
town of Holcomb. This stunning development was greeted with great enthusiasm by the Kansas environmental community as well as climate change activists across the country. The Washington Post had this story on its front page the next day. Other major media such as the New York Times, CBS News, Denver Post and Reuters (+ follow-up) also covered the story. Sunflower Electric, the Hays-based utility that was the lead Kansas entity promoting the Holcomb project, has said it has a "wheat truck full of lawyers" preparing a legal challenge to the ruling. In addition, prominent legislators such as Speaker of the House Melvin Neufeld and Senate President Stephen Morris have indicated they will seek legislative action in the 2008 session to combat Bremby's decision. (The plant would be in Morris' district and is adjacent to Neufeld's district.) So the proponents of the plant are preparing an all-out defense of it. Despite the evidence that clearly shows that investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy can produce more jobs and economic security than construction of central station coal plants, the Holcomb proponents persist in trying to extend the life of an outdated method of power production that poses a clear threat to the future of our planet. KNRC encourages
everyone who supports a progressive energy policy for Kansas to get
involved NOW!
Links to newspapers statewide may be found below.
Contact information for Governor Sebelius is
at:
Contact information for Lt. Governor
Parkinson is at:
You can find complete contact information
for your representative here:
and for your senator here:
*Please note that their state email
addresses (those that end in "state.ks.us") may not be in use
outside the legislative session. Use their personal contact
information instead.
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A coalition of several different organizations held a rally on the steps of the Capitol Building in Topeka on Saturday, December 2, 2006 to call for a moratorium on building new coal-fired power plants in Kansas, and for the Governor and the Legislature to make a serious commitment to lead the way on a progressive energy policy for the 21st Century. Speaking against new coal plants were Nicole Reiz (KU Environs), Linda Weinmaster (victim of mercury poisoning), Cliff Smedley (former recipient of the KNRC Bill Ward Award), KNRC Board member Margaret Thomas (speaking on behalf of the Sustainable Sanctuary Coalition of Kansas City) and Bill Griffith (Kansas Sierra Club). Here are some photos from the event.
For more information on the sponsoring organizations for the rally:
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Why the Proposed Holcomb Plant Expansion is so Important KNRC grew out of the struggle to prevent the construction of the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power plant in the late 1970's. The constellation of issues and arguments surrounding the construction of the Holcomb plants, as well as KCP&L's new Iatan coal plant north of Kansas City and the plant Westar is proposing to build near Emporia, are very reminiscent of thirty years ago. The electric utilities, as always, have the blinders on and can only see one option - boil more water to make more electricity. The alternatives are much the same now as they were thirty years ago - Conservation and Renewable Energy Sources. Leading the way would be improvements in energy efficiency. Simple conservation improvements can make a tremendous difference in the demand for power.
And the real beauty of all the conservation improvements is that they generate economic impact all across the state, as hardware stores and lumber yards sell the products and local craftsmen install them. Even more so now than in the 1970's, renewable energy can meet our energy needs. Wind power has matured as a technology, and Kansas has a tremendous wind resource that has scarcely been tapped. In that regard, the concept of Community Wind has gained prominence lately. Wind power can be brought on incrementally within a very short timeframe, providing a nimble and appropriate response to increasing demand.
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All the Kansas newspapers are listed on the Kansas Press Association website. Newspapers in Nearby States St. Joseph News-Press Omaha World Herald Daily Oklahoman Denver Post Rocky Mountain News
Environment News Service (ENS) Grist
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