Challenging The Sunflower Coal Plant Permit

Sunflower Electric is still heavily in debt to the federal government from building its first coal plant in Holcomb, Kansas. Even though there is no need for the power, Sunflower is proposing to build another, even bigger coal plant at the site of its existing plant. If built, the massive new plant would spew huge amounts of greenhouse gases and other dangerous pollutants into the environment for decades to come.

Sunflower has been greasing the wheels in every way possible to try to push this misguided project ahead—from back room deals with state politicians, to a huge write-off of its federal debt, to lawsuits trying to undermine the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the many dangerous pollutants the plant will emit. Sunflower got an air permit and a green light from Kansas officials to build the plant, but Earthjustice challenged the permit as lacking necessary protections under clean air laws.

Thankfully, the state Supreme Court agreed with Earthjustice and its clients in 2013 when it invalidated Sunflower’s air pollution permit for the new plant. With new environmental standards in effect since the project was first proposed, the likelihood of the expansion plant legally meeting those standards or finding financial backing for unneeded coal-fired generation are dim.