Kansas governor Sam Brownback last week signed a bill authorising state agencies to devise a strategy for complying with the US EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) despite strong opposition to the regulation within his administration and the state’s Republican-controlled legislature.

While the legislation requires the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) and the Kansas Corporation Commission to cooperate with a legislative oversight committee created to deal with the EPA rule, it also directs those agencies to comply with ongoing state efforts to contest the plan through litigation, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

Under provisions of the CPP, US states failing to develop their own plans to reduce carbon emissions from their electricity sector will be mandated reduction strategies by the federal government, an outcome Brownback said he was seeking to avoid.

“We just need to protect the rights of the state of Kansas and its residents from the continued pattern of federal intrusion and overreach,” Brownback said.

The bill also allows the KDHE secretary to consider the cost to electricity ratepayers when developing an emissions reduction plan.

Kansas is one of nearly 20 states that have asked the EPA to withdraw the CPP and is participating in one of two lawsuits intended to overturn the rule.

By Robert Mullin – news@carbon-pulse.com