Tell Attorney General Schmidt to investigate the Holcomb coal plant permit
"This is not how government is supposed to work." -- Lawrence-Journal World Editorial1
A shocking story in the Kansas City Star2 over the weekend exposes the stunning illegitimacy of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's decision late last year to grant a permit to Sunflower Electric Power Corporation for a massive expansion of the dirty Holcomb coal plant.
KDHE officials allowed Sunflower staff to provide responses to public questions about the proposed plant -- and then passed them back to the public verbatim as if they were drafted by state regulators. Incredibly, KDHE staff members asked Sunflower officials whether the department should respond to some of the questions at all.
Roderick Bremby, a previous Director of KDHE who was fired by Governor Parkinson over his opposition to the Holcomb plant, told the Kansas City Star that "there was a total abdication of responsibility." Mr. Bremby is right -- and KDHE needs to be held accountable.
Tell Attorney General Derek Schmidt to launch a corruption and misconduct investigation into the permitting process for the dirty Holcomb coal plant.
After a four year legal battle, Sunflower Electric Power Corporation's permit for a massive expansion of the dirty Holcomb coal plant was approved in December 2010. The permit was rushed through in order to avoid EPA regulations the plant would have had to have followed had it been permitted in 2011.
Responding to public concerns, and ensuring Kansans are protected from dangerous pollution, is KDHE's job. By handing over key governmental responsibilities to Sunflower, KDHE put that responsibility in the hands of the polluters -- entirely undermining the purpose of the public comment period and permitting process, and showing total disregard for a good faith evaluation of public feedback and potential health impacts.
Allowing Sunflower to draft the department's responses to public questions isn't the only misconduct KDHE was involved in. The department also allowed a Sunflower employee to set up the computer program they used to organize the public's comments. As a local newspaper editorialized on Tuesday, "Only an agency seeking to validate a foregone conclusion would give so much authority to an applicant."3
By launching an investigation into the permitting process and the cozy relationship between Sunflower and KDHE, Attorney General Schmidt can get to the bottom of this once and for all.
1. Failed Duty, Lawrence Journal-World, June 21, 2011
2. Kansas agency, utility worked closely on permit for plant, Kansas City Star June 18, 2011
3. A polluted process by Mark Parkinson's administration on Sunflower permit, Kansas City Star June 21, 2011
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"I urge you to immediately launch an investigation into the Holcomb plant permitting process to determine whether public comments were adequately taken into account and whether any misconduct took place."
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