July 15 Part One – Public Comments on Sunflower Energy’s Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plant

Community Bridge opens this week with Stephanie Cole, Kansas Sierra Club, and Scott Allegrucci, Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, in a discussion of the public hearing process for Sunflower Electric’s proposed 895-MW coal plant in Holcomb.

While many may think this is a done deal because the governor and the legislature removed even the potential of regulatory and rate oversight over Sunflower by the Kansas Corporation Commission, and stripped the Kansas Department of Health and Environment of any state authority over air quality, the truth is, neither the governor, nor the legislature, nor a single utility has the ability to unilaterally ignore the existing enforcement agreement between the State of Kansas and the Environmental Protection Agency. Making the up-coming public comment time and public hearings worth paying attention to.

Recently, Physicians for Social Responsibility issued a report showing that coal emissions contribute to four of the five leading causes of death in this country. That means that although Sunflower claims this plant will be the “cleanest in the country,” if it is built, Kansans will be at an increased risk for heart disease, cancer, stroke, and lower respiratory diseases, such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema. So although Colorado is poised to get 80 percent of the energy produced by the plant, Kansas will be stuck with 100 percent of the pollution and 100 percent of the health risks.

The public comment period for Sunflower’s Holcomb Station coal plant is open from July 1 – August 15. Public comments can be submitted to KDHE anytime during that period. Public hearing will be held on:

• August 2 in Overland Park at 2:00 PM Blue Valley Northwest High School (135th and Switzer)
• August 4 in Salina at 2:00 PM Highway Patrol Training Center Auditorium (2025 East Iron)
• August 5 in Garden City at 2:00 PM Garden City Community College Joyce Auditorium (801 Campus Drive)

Hearings will break at 5:00 PM and reconvene at 6:30 PM, continuing until all verbal and written comments have been submitted. For more information, visit KDHE’s Website.

To listen to the podcast, click here.

To Kansas Clean Energy Supporters:

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released the schedule for the public comment period and hearings on the proposed Holcomb coal plant project. The comment period begins today, July 1, and ends August 15 (which means that comments can be submitted directly to KDHE outside the public hearings any time during this period).

Three public hearings have been scheduled for the first week of August:

• August 2 in Overland Park at Blue Valley Northwest High School
• August 4 in Salina at Highway Patrol Training Central Auditorium
• August 5 in Garden City at Garden City Community College Joyce Auditorium

Each hearing will begin at 2:00 PM. Hearings will break at 5:00 PM and reconvene at 6:30 PM, continuing until all written or verbal comments have submitted.  Note that the hearings start in KC and move west to Garden City.

You may see public statements indicating the “issuance of a draft permit” – this is technically correct, but misleading.

KDHE has issued a draft permit that is now the subject of the public comment process.  As with the previous process in 2007, that draft permit can be altered or amended at any time by KDHE or EPA, right up until the very end of this process.  It can also be denied.  The public comment period could also be extended if necessary.

GPACE will be posting more information in the coming days that can help inform your comments, including topical fact sheets about the impacts of the proposed coal plant project.  A form is up on our website now that allows citizens to submit comments which we will then deliver to KDHE. This form is at http://www.gpace.org/publiccomment/.

And next week keep an eye out for the first e-newsletter from GPACE with information about the proposed coal plant project, the public comment process and hearings, and breaking news and information about this entire process.

Again, please be on the lookout for more information in the next few days, and mark you calendars for these hearings.

Many Thanks,

Scott Allegrucci

Director

By Scott Rothschild of The Lawrence Journal-World

TOPEKA — A measure tucked into the state budget could prevent Kansas from implementing Environmental Protection Agency rules on greenhouse gases.

The proposal was shepherded through by Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, during the final days of the legislative session that ended last week.

“Instead of supporting sound science and common sense, the EPA has chosen to take the radical path of attempting to regulate carbon dioxide and methane,” said Huelskamp, who also is running for the 1st District congressional seat, currently occupied by Jerry Moran.

“I’m determined to do what is best for our Kansas economy, and that is to oppose the EPA implementation of their cap-and-trade regulatory scheme at every possible opportunity,” he said.

The amendment to the appropriations bill would prohibit any state agency from spending state funds “to plan, draft, propose, promulgate, finalize or implement any rules and regulations pursuant to the Clean Air Act involving the greenhouse gases identified” in the EPA’s endangerment finding.

EPA has declared that climate-changing greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare and need to be regulated. Those gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which enforces environmental rules, is the target of the amendment, and a major issue before KDHE is a pending permit for an 895-megawatt coal-fired electric power plant in southwest Kansas, known as the Sunflower Electric Power Project.

In 2007, KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby denied the permit for the project, citing the effects of the proposal’s potential carbon dioxide emissions on health and environment.

In 2008 and 2009, Sunflower Electric and Colorado-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which would own most of the power from the project, pushed through legislation to overturn Bremby’s decision. Then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius vetoed that legislation several times.

When Mark Parkinson became governor in 2009, after Sebelius’ departure to join President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, Parkinson made a deal with Sunflower and Tri-State to build a smaller project.

The amendment to the budget bill is now in the hands of Parkinson, who can let it become law or apply a line-item veto to it. Parkinson’s office said the governor has not yet received the appropriations bill but that once he does he will thoroughly consider every proviso before taking any action.

Environmentalists are unhappy with the amendment but, ironically, they are not asking for Parkinson to veto it.

Given Parkinson’s deal-making with Sunflower on the coal plant, they don’t see much help coming from the Statehouse.

“At this point, we’re not inclined to use the legislative process to combat these special interests anymore,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club. “The legislative process is being abused. We will focus on the Sunflower project in the courts.”

Scott Allegrucci, director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy, said the provision wouldn’t stand up in court and probably would invite more scrutiny from the EPA on Kansas environmental regulation.

“We might consider more direct oversight by EPA a much more responsible and dependable pathway to regulatory certainty in Kansas,” Allegrucci said.

EPA’s Regional Administrator Karl Brooks has already written a letter to Parkinson and Bremby expressing concerns about any provision that would block federal rules.

In that letter, Brooks warns that if a state doesn’t follow federal pollution laws, the EPA will exercise its authority to make sure that projects seeking permits adhere to federal requirements.

GPACE will be presenting on Wednesday, May 19th at the Tri-State Generation and Transmission public resource planning meeting at Tri-State headquarters in Westminster, Colorado.

This public resource planning process that Tri-State is undergoing was brought about as part of a settlement agreement primarily involving the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, Colorado Governor Ritter’s office, Western Resource Advocates, and Tri-State, whereby an existing docket to consider PUC regulation of Tri-State was closed without action in exchange for this public resource planning process.

The process is non-binding; that is, Tri-State is not obligated to accept any of the recommendations or answer public questions, but it does provide a forum for important public information and scrutiny of Tri-State’s resource planning.

Tri-State has no member coops in Kansas, so why is the resource planning process of a Colorado-based rural electric coop of interest or importance to Kansans?

Recall that it was in response to an RFP for baseload capacity from Tri-State that Sunflower Electric (in Kansas) let their permit for the 660mw Sand Sage project expire (after the initial granting and an extension) and began the process of putting together the current plan to build three huge additional coal plants at Holcomb for out-of-state utilities.  So far as we know (the details have not been discussed since rural electric coops do not have to allow public or regulatory review of their plans) Tri-State would be the equity owner of 80% of the electric power produced by the proposed 895mw coal-fired plant at the Holcomb Station, and they would own 80% of the equity value of the plant.  Beyond that, not much is known about the details of the business arrangement between Tri-State and Sunflower regarding the proposed plant, or any future development at Holcomb.

We do know that Tri-State reps recently acknowledged in one of the public meetings that they currently have developed no transmission plans for Holcomb – which seems to be at odds with claims by Sunflower and Holcomb supporters in Kansas that the plant is critical to transmission for wind energy.  That fact is also seemingly not in compliance with the settlement agreement between the Governor and Sunflower, which calls for transmission to be built.

Tri-State is also on record stating that they do not see the Holcomb coal plant as a near term baseload solution under any circumstances, which again, is at odds with claims by Sunflower and Kansas coal supporters that the plants will start construction within a year and employ people to combat the recession.

And, Tri-State’s own load forecasts acknowledge that they do not have near-term need for the baseload capacity represented by the proposed Kansas coal plant.

Yet, their 2009 annual report shows that they have spent $51.3 million, excluding the cost of land and water rights, developing the units at Holcomb as of December 31, 2009.

So, what’s currently happening at the Tri-State public resource planning meetings (and the ultimate outcome of their resource planning process) will have a tremendous impact upon Kansans, since the fate of the proposed 895mw coal-fired plant, and the possible addition of two more huge coal plants as part of the proposed Holcomb Station expansion, may be impacted.

Even if you can’t attend the May 19th meeting near Denver, Kansans can register and participate in the public meeting via webinar here.

Scott Allegrucci

Executive Director

By Scott Allegrucci, Director of GPACE

The long-awaited air quality permit application from Sunflower Electric Power Corporation to build a 900mw coal-fired power plant has been submitted to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Sunflower once said it had to have the permit by the end of the 2008 legislative session, then by June of 2009, then that it would submit the permit application by early November, then by the end of the year, then before the start of the legislative session.

So why the delay?  There are lots of possibilities, including:

• Possible difficulties modeling air quality measures for the new project.
• Possible difficulties attempting to secure financing in the current economic and regulatory climate.
• Possibly they were waiting out the threat of oversight over Tri-State (the utility that will actually finance and own the plant and its energy) by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
• Possibly they are concerned about proposed federal energy legislation.
• Possibly they are scrambling in the fast-changing federal regulatory environment.
• Perhaps they hope for legislative pressure on KDHE timed to the 2010 session.
• Or maybe they hope to delay a final decision until a new state administration is in place.

In the meantime, much has changed:

• Kansas now ranks #2 in the nation for wind resource (behind Texas, according to new data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory).
• New technology has expanded estimated domestic natural gas reserves, and natural gas prices are very low.
• Developing new energy efficiency measures, Class 4 & 5 wind, and natural gas are all cheaper than developing new coal-fired generation.
• EPA has established carbon dioxide as a pollutant, and is positioned to regulate CO2 (as directed by the U.S. Supreme Court).  EPA is also enforcing existing regulations covering other coal plant emissions.
• Demand for electricity is significantly lower in Kansas and nationwide.
• Kansas has a Renewable Energy Standard on the books.
• Colorado is moving for a more aggressive RES.
• New Mexico & Texas are advancing aggressive renewable energy plans.
• Nebraska is developing wind, has joined Kansas in the Southwest Power Pool, and has excess baseload electricity that it wants to sell.
• Sunflower Electric owes hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid loans to taxpayers, even after three bailouts costing taxpayers hundreds of millions more.
• Transmission infrastructure to move electricity (esp. wind energy) through and out of Kansas is moving forward.
• Unemployment is higher nationwide and in Kansas.
• Sunflower has revised claims of permanent jobs from the plant down from “over 200” or “between 300-400” to “about 50.”

Yet, Sunflower’s commitment to burn coal and to the fortunes of its Wyoming and Colorado partners remains locked in tight.  No question, it’s good that the new coal plant permit will soon be available for public comment and review, especially given the backroom deal making that advanced it this far.

But consider this:  even if the permit is granted (and despite two hijacked legislative sessions; millions of dollars spent on advertising, lobbyists, and attorneys; and a secret pact with the governor; this is not certain), the inevitable lawsuits are settled, and Sunflower can figure out how to finance the plant and absorb increased costs related to coal, the Holcomb coal plant is still at least two years away from breaking ground (and creating jobs) and at least five years away from producing electricity (for Tri-State in Colorado).

The whole project really has nothing to do with Kansas energy needs.  It will be financed and owned by out-of-state utilities.  It will make Kansas more dependent upon imported fuel.  And it will expose Sunflower ratepayers and Kansas taxpayers to increased costs.  One wonders what might have been if Sunflower had pursued a more responsible course?

How many Kansans might be working right now had Sunflower chosen to tap Kansas wind and natural gas to meet their energy needs?  And energy efficiency technology and local HVAC technicians to reduce their electricity load?  How much of the severance revenue, fuel purchases, and economic stimulus that will now go to Wyoming, might have come to Kansas for natural gas and wind energy?  How much Kansas water will now be used to make Colorado’s electricity?  How much of the money to be paid to railways shipping coal from Wyoming to the plant, might have gone to Kansas farmers, ranchers, and school districts for wind and gas leases?

We may never know.

Scott Allegrucci

On the heels of the proposed coal plant deal between the Governor and Sunflower Electric, a troubling history between USDA and the utility has been unearthed as part of a federal lawsuit.

In the 1980’s, Sunflower got cheap loans from the federal government, courtesy of American taxpayers, in order to build a coal plant bigger than its ratepayers needed or could afford. As a result, the company has been unable to make the payments. USDA has three times bailed the company out by restructuring and forgiving hundreds of millions of dollars of loans and interest. In exchange Sunflower signed over some control of its business decisions to USDA.

Sunflower had USDA’s permission to build another coal plant it couldn’t afford, and without conducting requisite environmental analysis. But even then, USDA complained about the “extensive and time-consuming” assistance Sunflower’s business practices required.

Now, with the nation reeling from bad loans and dubious bailouts, with major banks refusing to finance risky coal plants, with Kansas’ vast wind resources remaining largely untapped, and with the costs of carbon emissions about to be accounted for, our governor and legislature have passed a law demanding that air quality permits be granted to build another coal plant larger than needed, and that customers cannot pay for.

Sunflower traded federal oversight for taxpayer dollars to bail it out of a previous misguided investment in coal-fired power. The company has defaulted on those loans multiple times. Now it is turning to out-of-state utilities to build and own another oversized coal-fired plant, sucking electricity and water out of Kansas, leaving us pollution, health costs, and huge financial risks.

The challenge: A critical utility provider for Western Kansans has some serious management and fiscal problems and has been stung by questionable business decisions in the past. Its service area contains significant reserves of two of the state’s most abundant and cleanest energy resources, wind and natural gas – both of which form the foundation of the Pickens Plan.

The solution proposed by Kansas politicians: Encourage this utility to make the very same mistake that got it into this mess by investing in another over-build of coal-fired capacity, sending millions of Kansas ratepayer dollars out of state every year for utility-grade coal we can’t produce.

Two critical legislative sessions were wasted pursuing this plan. Countless millions of dollars were spent on lobbyists and media supporting the coal plants, while the utility that wants them can’t even pay back existing loans from taxpayers. Meanwhile, Kansas, with the third best wind resource in the nation, ranks ninth in installed wind capacity.

It is unfortunate that, by trying anything to dig its way out of this mess, Sunflower may actually be digging a deeper hole for its ratepayers. It is inexplicable that our top elected officials have responded by throwing the company a shovel. The real question is: In this race to the bottom, who pays to dig the “winner” out of the hole?

Secret unilateral decisions done, the coal “compromise” lacks only a signature to become law. At this point, to get caught up in the political victory dance or dejection is to miss the point, as all too often happens at the Kansas capitol.

The most pressing issues at stake in this debate are not whether one, two, or three new coal plants are permitted for Sunflower Electric. To be sure, the current agreement will saddle Kansans with serious economic, environmental, and energy policy liabilities. With this deal, we consign to our children and future generations of Kansans huge financial risks, adverse health impacts, environmental damage, and resource depletion. If it ever becomes more than paper.

And there could be potentially devastating impacts on Finney County should this one basket carrying so many of their eggs get dropped on the long legal, regulatory, and financial road ahead.

However, there are two more immediate problems with this agreement:

First, the “let’s-make-a-deal” signal it sends to anyone with the money and influence to get a private audience with Kansas elected officials is damaging to the credibility of our state government, and to the trust we must place in it.

Second, by punting on third-down, the governor surrendered the chance to bargain for better policy. He and key state legislators have conceded that they do not have the ability to create good energy policy for Kansas and are now leaving it up to the federal government and multi-national institutions to decide our energy fate.

At this juncture, the feds will make policy from a regional and national perspective that disadvantages Kansas, since states around us are better positioned for federal partnership and private investment.

“Something”, in terms of renewable energy in Kansas, may be better than “nothing.” But good policy is also much better than bad policy. The only people truly happy with this deal are those positioned to profit from the plants and from reduced health and environmental accountability in Kansas.

But in the end, the fate of the proposed coal plants will not (cannot) be decided by our governor or our legislature. The regulatory, legal, and economic uncertainties surrounding coal plants are playing out at a level well above their heads. The bummer is that legislative supporters of the coal plants wasted at least two critical years settling a political score under the capitol dome, when they could have been crafting real energy and economic policy that put Kansas at a competitive advantage nationally and put Kansans all across the state back to work. This governor gave them that political “victory” in return for little of real value…at least to most Kansans.

Our leaders have left Kansas with poor field position in the renewable energy game, but it is better than it would have been without the efforts of advocates statewide. Now we have to keep our eyes on the goal line.

Scott Allegrucci
Director, Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy

For any potential it offers, the governor’s coal plant deal appears to be an act of political expediency in the face of political extortion.  I fear it sacrifices policy in the public interest to appease those seeking to achieve their own ends.  At the very least, it is simply conducting Sunflower Electric’s resource planning on public time.

The same governor who called upon us to stand up against what he called bad policy and dishonest brokering, has now brokered his own back-room deal and calls upon us to “step aside” so that special interests can achieve their goals.  This is presented as a “compromise”, but the only people involved in the terms of the deal were Sunflower Electric and their allies.  Those of us advocating open and accountable government and truly comprehensive energy policy that maximizes our state’s renewable energy resources were locked out and misinformed.

These “renewable energy gains” are a good place to start a responsible comprehensive energy policy.  They are hardly where Kansas – with our abundant renewable energy resources – would hope to end up after years of wrangling with the issues, and especially given the current economic and energy priorities of the nation.  And they do not even begin to “offset”, “mitigate”, or “reduce” the costs of carbon emissions from the plant as suggested.

Thank you for coming and welcome to the second annual Kansas Clean Energy Day.

My name is Scott Allegrucci and I am the director of the Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy or GPACE.

I am honored to share this platform with individuals representing more than a dozen Kansas organizations – labor unions, environmental groups, health advocates, community activists, people of faith, farmers and ranchers, and advocates for good government and policy in the public interest.  We will hear from them today.

The hundreds of people gathered here today represent those and many other organizations; dozens of communities from across Kansas; hundreds of Kansas families, businesses, and farms and ranches; and hundreds of thousands of individual Kansans statewide who have been anxiously waiting for policy that maximizes the tremendous clean energy resources and the top-notch workforce that our state is blessed with.

Some of us may not be here in opposition to the proposed new coal plants.  Some of us will oppose more coal-fired generation under any circumstances.  Some of us have land to lease for wind turbines or to use to produce biomass.  Some of us make hybrid automobiles.  Some of us work with the materials needed for solar panels, wind turbines, or transmission lines.

To be clear – and speaking on behalf of GPACE – we feel that the proposed legislation is really good energy policy … for Colorado and Texas utilities (who will get at least 85% of the electricity and get to use our water).  And it’s really good economic policy … for Wyoming coal mines (who will get 99 million Kansas dollars every year).   We suggest it would be cheaper and cleaner to put Kansans to work building a pipeline to Colorado if we’re just going to give them our water.

To GPACE, the whole thing sounds a lot like the famed miner’s divorce settlement – they get the mine, and we get the shaft.

When we look at the latest “energy” bill, we see a curtain of bogus concerns about “regulatory uncertainty” and “the rule of law” and “tyranny”.   We see a curtain of bogus “green energy provisions” that are neither “green” nor do they produce much energy.  What’s behind the curtain?  Coal plants.  And that’s it.  We say:  get rid of the curtain.  If the coal plants are such a good idea, give them their own vote.

But this is not just about coal plants.  Or rather, it shouldn’t be.  Two legislative sessions have been spent on the coal argument.  The result for Kansas has been … absolutely nothing.  Real, comprehensive energy policy has been held hostage for two years now, just to advance a political argument by special interests in the building behind us.

But right here, right now all of us gathered at our capitol have this in common:
We know tens of thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, and billions of dollars of investment can be created all across Kansas from the renewable energy economy.
We know this can happen without jeopardizing our air, our water, and our health.
And we are tired of the political games that continue to deny us much needed economic development and a 21st-century energy policy.

The administration has done their part:  they offered a compromise proposal last year that was ignored.  They offered a renewable energy package this year that has been ignored.

Fifty-four legislators have done they’re part:  they have withstood hundreds of thousands of dollars in ongoing phone banks and direct mail and advertising based upon missing and mis-information, and more than two dozen special interest lobbyists and they said “not good enough” to three bogus “energy” bills last year and another one this year.

Now we must continue to do our part.

This is bigger than one political party or another.  This is bigger than one economic sector or another.  This is bigger than one governor or another.

Kansas has renewable energy resources that are the envy of the world.   The federal government is counting on at least 7100MW of wind energy to come from Kansas in order to meet the goal of 20% of the nation’s electricity from wind by 2030, as proposed by former president Bush.  There are over 11,000 potential jobs with existing Kansas companies that could manufacture renewable energy components.  To say nothing of attracting and creating new companies.  To say nothing of the jobs required to create energy efficiency and generate renewable energy.

So we say:  get on with it!  Kansans want public policy that provides the greatest good, for the most people, over the longest time – not junk policy designed by and to benefit special interests.  This is too important.  And too long-lasting.

We are asking for an end to political games and special interest peddling.  We are asking for policy that puts the resources and the people we already have in Kansas to work for Kansas, and for the benefit of our children.  We are asking for a clean vote for clean energy.  It’s not too much to ask and it’s long overdue.

by Scott Rothschild in the Lawrence Journal-World

Topeka — Several hundred people Thursday rallied outside the Capitol to oppose a bill that would allow construction of two 700-megawatt coal-burning power plants.

“Global warming is real, and it’s time to do something about it,” Tom Thompson, a lobbyist for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club, said during the Clean Energy Day event.

Lawmakers have been fighting for two years over the coal-fired plants proposed to be built in southwest Kansas.

The Legislature has approved bills to build the plants, but Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed those attempts. Supporters have been unable to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to overturn the vetoes.

The latest bill now is in a House-Senate conference committee.

Some have theorized that supporters of the project will keep the bill in conference until Sebelius leaves Kansas as President Barack Obama’s nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services. Then once Sebelius is gone, supporters think they will be able to overturn a veto.

But speakers at the rally urged lawmakers who are opposed to the plant to remain strong — and focus instead on renewable energy, such as Kansas wind power.

“It’s not drill, baby, drill. It’s blow, baby, blow,” said Kathie Moore, of the Reno County Wind Energy Task Force.

The rally featured speakers representing environmental, religious and labor organizations.