To the editor:

Is it any coincidence that Gov. Mark Parkinson forced Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Roderick Bremby to resign as we await KDHE’s final decision on Sunflower Electric’s latest permit request for a coal plant? I think not.

Three years ago, Bremby rejected Sunflower’s permit for two proposed coal plants, marking the first time a government agency cited carbon dioxide emissions as a reason to reject a permit. Then when Parkinson took office last year, he met behind closed doors with Sunflower and came out of the meeting announcing his support of their proposed coal plant.

No other permit request has encouraged the governor to take such drastic action. What is it about this permit that has caused our governor to ignore citizen concern about the negative consequences of the proposed coal plant and go out of his way to help this one company build a coal plant? What’s in it for him?

Margaret Tran,

Lawrence