To the editor:

In “Denying plants just a start” (Journal-World, Oct. 24) on Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment Rod Bremby’s decision to deny construction of coal-fired electric plants in western Kansas, KU professor Mike Hoeflich challenges the state to develop a strategic energy plan. Kansas’ scientists are “exceptionally strong” in these areas, he says, and “The governor needs to put these scientists to work.”

This is a job for the Kansas Academy of Science. According to the National Association of Academies of Science (NAAS), all 43 state academies are stepping into the role of honest broker of scientific/technical information in service of local decision and policy makers. Networking and support from the National Academies of Science and Engineering in Washington, D.C., can give them and, by extension, their state leaders – our state leaders – access to the best minds and knowledge in the world on today’s critical issues. The least helpful way to resolve such matters is a public/legal/political dispute between dueling experts. Accurate science is the only investable foundation for innovative business models that can achieve goals previously thought to be incompatible.

I second Professor Hoeflich’s call for Kansas to develop a well-informed strategic energy plan. I urge the governor to call upon the Kansas Academy of Science to assist. With support from the National Academies, they should convene a multi-disciplinary committee of top scientists, environment/health experts and economists to review what is known about all relevant options and assemble that information for application to the situation “on the ground” in Kansas.

John Lillard Burch,

Lawrence