Kansas budget impasse threatens spending, coal bills

    `TOPEKA (AP) — A legislative dispute over the budget held up work Monday on the year’s final spending bill and a measure allowing two coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.
    The Senate convened only briefly, and few members were at the Statehouse. The House met but considered only one minor bill, a measure attempting to settle a water dispute in eastern Douglas County.
    The inaction gave legislative leaders a chance to work out the two chambers’ differences. Senators expected to debate the coal plants bill Tuesday, but negotiations over the budget hadn’t resumed Monday night.
    “We’re still on hold,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Sharon Schwartz, a Washington Republican.
    Two budget items were at the center of the dispute. They are nearly $40 million in bonds for prison construction and $750,000 for road improvements near the Parsons Army Ammunition Plant.
    Powerful senators back them, and they’ve been approved in previous legislation. But many House members want them stripped from the budget, viewing them as wasteful spending.
    Budget negotiators remained unable Saturday to agree. The House adjourned Saturday night, and senators were upset because they wanted to keep working to finish up for the year. Senate leaders then said their chamber may not take up any more business.
    But that would doom what has become the top priority for House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, an Ingalls Republican, and Senate President Steve Morris, a Hugoton Republican. It’s a bill to clear the way for the two coal-fired power plants and limit the power of the regulator who has been blocking their construction.
    “They can blast us all they want to, but there’s right and wrong in this building,” said House Majority Leader Ray Merrick, a Stilwell Republican.
    Gov. Kathleen Sebelius already has signed a bill containing most of the $13.6 billion state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Overall spending will increase between $400 million and $455 million, or between 3 percent and 3.4 percent.
    State government could function without the last spending bill, known as the Omnibus Appropriations Act. But lawmakers likely would face making dozens of changes next year, with the budget half spent.
    The Senate’s version would shift money around but not increase overall spending. The House’s version adds about $86 million.
    Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt said House members criticisms of the two projects is designed to pull the focus away from the larger budget picture.
    “We’ve chosen not to emphasize it, and they’ve chosen not to talk about it,” the Independence Republican said.
    Schmidt strongly supports the prison expansion, and one project, in Yates Center, would be in his district.
    The Parsons project is in the district of Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dwayne Umbarger, a Thayer Republican. It is designed to help local officials turn the soon-to-closed federal ammunition plant into an industrial park.
    Many House members question the need for the prison expansion, noting that the Kansas Sentencing Commission has projected no need for additional bed space until 2017. Many of them also view the Parsons road as pork and even call it “the road to nowhere.”
    “I think the people of the state would be outraged,” Merrick said.
    But Schmidt said: “We believe the discussion needs to focus on the bottom line of the Omnibus bill and not be distracted by digging up old bones.”
    The coal-fired power plants are caught up in the debate because their supporters have drafted a new bill, having failed to override Sebelius’ vetoes of two previous measures.
    And the Senate must consider the legislation first.
    Sunflower Electric Power Corp. wants to build the plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County, and bipartisan majorities in both chambers view the project as economic development.
    But in October, Rod Bremby, the governor’s secretary of health and environment, denied Sunflower an air-quality permit over the plants’ potential carbon dioxide emissions. Many scientists link such man-made greenhouse gases to global warming.
    Backers of the plants have been trying to draft a plan that could muster two-thirds majorities, which are necessary to override a veto.
    Their latest proposal ties the Sunflower project and provisions limiting the secretary’s power to other economic development legislation. One measure would allow the state to issue bonds to help attract a transportation hub in Johnson County.
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    Budget bill is Senate Sub for HB 2946. Bill on coal plants is HB 2412.
    On the Net:
    Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org