Topeka ? A state Senate committee Wednesday approved a resolution aimed at exempting burning in the Flint Hills from federal environmental restrictions.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 1623 urges Congress to require the Environmental Protection Agency to exclude air monitoring data from use in determining air pollution violations where the emissions are from prairie burning in the Flint Hills.

Ranchers support the resolution, but environmentalists don’t. In past years, smoke drifting from the burning has affected air quality in the Kansas City and Wichita areas.