Topeka ? Electric company leaders, representatives of businesses and unions, and a former high-ranking environmental official in the Bush administration testified Monday in favor of legislation allowing two coal-burning power plants in western Kansas.

“This bill will help create new jobs, ensure that existing jobs remain in Kansas, and promote our state’s economic prosperity,” said Brian Moline, chairman of the Alliance for Sound Energy Policy, which includes business and labor members.

Moline made his remarks to the House Energy and Utilities Committee, one of two panels hosting hearings this week on identical bills that would overturn the denial by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration of two 700-megawatt coal-fired plants near Holcomb.

Meanwhile, environmentalists, who will be able to testify later in the week before the committees, held a news conference criticizing the legislation.

“These bills are sugar-coated poison pills,” said Chris Cardinal, a Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy spokesman.

At issue is whether to allow construction of the $3.6 billion plants.

In October, Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby denied permits for the plants, citing the project’s annual emissions of 11 million tons of carbon dioxide and its effect on climate change.

But plant developer Sunflower Electric Power Corp. helped put together House Bill 2711 and Senate Bill 515. Supporters of the measure say it is a compromise because while it allows construction of the plants it will also enact the first CO2 rules in the country.

Environmentalists and Sebelius, however, say the rules are inadequate because the bills are full of loopholes and credits that would invite even more coal-burning plants.

“This bill is the only attempt we are aware of nationwide where a state Legislature is actually proposing to accelerate global warming,” said Stephanie Cole, a spokeswoman for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club.

Sebelius revealed last week that she offered a compromise that would have allowed Sunflower to build one 660-megawatt coal-burning plant to take care of its Kansas customers. Under Sunflower’s plan, 85 percent of the 1,400 megawatts would be owned by out-of-state companies and sold to out-of-state customers.

But Earl Watkins Jr., Sunflower president and chief executive, said Monday that both plants must be built so that Sunflower could receive $95 million in “development fees” to operate the plants for the other owners, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association of Colorado and Golden Spread Electric Cooperatives of Texas.

“These upfront payments provide for the equity necessary for Sunflower’s 200-megawatt portion of the plant, which will cost a total of about $540 million,” he said.

Another dispute in the legislation is that it would prohibit the secretary of KDHE from using any standards in excess of federal standards to evaluate permits without permission from the Legislature.

In denying the plants, Bremby relied on a legal opinion from the attorney general’s office that allowed him to consider the effect of unregulated pollutants such as carbon dioxide when granting air-quality permits as part of his role in protecting the general “health of persons or the environment.”

But William Wehrum, a former high-ranking EPA official with the Bush administration, said that Bremby’s action was “based on a flawed interpretation of the law.”

Wehrum said the state law shouldn’t be construed to apply to new air emission sources, but only emergency actions needed to address existing sources of emissions.