By SARAH KESSINGER

Harris News Service

TOPEKA -- New Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six stands by a controversial advisory opinion issued by his predecessor on regulation of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants.

"We will not revise the opinion dealing with KDHE's authority," Six's spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett wrote this week in an e-mail. "The opinion recognizes that (state law) K.S.A. 65-3012 authorizes the secretary to take actions as necessary to protect the health of persons or the environment."

State Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby sought the opinion, issued last fall by former Attorney General Paul Morrison. Bremby then used the opinion as a basis for denying air-quality permits that Sunflower Electric and its utility partners had requested for two new coal-fired electricity plants near Holcomb.

In a statement announcing the denial, Bremby cited the plants' estimated 11 million tons of annual CO2 emissions and the emissions link to global climate change.

The action is now the target of a lawsuit filed by the utilities that's pending before the Kansas Supreme Court.

Emler not surprised

Senate Utilities Chairman Jay Emler, R-Lindsborg, has sharply criticized the attorney general's opinion as leading to an unlawful act by Bremby.

Emler said Wednesday he wasn't surprised at Six's position because the opinion was written by an assistant attorney who worked under Morrison and now works under Six.

"I would expect them to stand behind their employee. I wouldn't expect them to redo it because the top guy changed, because the top guy wasn't the one who wrote it."

Emler is the Senate's lead negotiator on a House-Senate conference committee working on a bill this week seeking to reverse Bremby's decision.

The committee plans to complete its work Friday, according to the House lead negotiator Carl Holmes, R-Liberal.

"We'll probably stick with it until we're done," he said.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius reiterated Wednesday that both House and Senate bills are "unacceptable" because they strip the state's health and environment secretary of his power to regulate carbon dioxide, allow electric cooperatives to move out from under regulators' jurisdiction and fail to deal with 11 million new tons annually of carbon emissions.

"Finally, and most baffling, is the refusal to frankly deal in any meaningful way with incentives and investments for wind energy when we know we have terrific assets," Sebelius said.

"What's left in the bill I think sends exactly the wrong signal."

Going green makes sense

Speaking to reporters in her office, Sebelius said clean energy was a high priority at the National Governor's Association meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this week.

Sebelius, a Democrat, is co-chairwoman of the National Governor's Association's "clean energy future" effort with Minnesota's Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty. She said General Electric's CEO Jeff Immel updated them on corporate America's outlook on the new energy economy.

Immel said "he is an unabashed capitalist ... that he is about making money and creating more jobs for his company," Sebelius said, "and he thinks that both investment and involvement in sustainable and renewable fuels and sustainable technology is absolutely the way that America's economy needs to be re-directed."

New manufacturing of wind turbines and other components offer "enormous potential for exports," she said, adding that about half of GE's new technology is now sold overseas to countries embracing clean energy.

In light of that, Sebelius said, Kansas legislators should focus on new renewable energy enticements rather than ignoring them in the latest round of legislation.

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