A new face in Kansas politics is bringing bipartisan solutions to difficult problems. Rather than simply falling back on strict anti-coal ideologies, Kansas’ new governor, Mark Parkinson, has worked with energy producers to end a protracted legal dispute over the state’s energy future.

The dispute began in 2007 when the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), Roderick Bremby, ruled that a planned expansion of the Sunflower Energy Holcomb generation station could not proceed. Despite the fact that the planned expansion “complied with all federal and state environmental laws and regulations”, Bremby arbitrarily refused to grant the project’s state air quality permit citing his personal concerns over potential future impacts of CO₂ emissions from the plant. Project proponents argued that Bremby and the KDHE were playing capricious political games as they attempted to change the rules in the middle of the permitting process.