Kansas City, Mo. ? Sunflower Electric Co. will have more time before it is required to begin construction of its controversial coal-fired plant in western Kansas after the state issued an unusual extension for the company’s building permit.

The order issued Thursday by Robert Moser, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, apparently means the company will not have to adhere to stricter pollution laws that took effect in January, The Kansas City Star reported.

Environmental groups called the extension improper and said it showed a continuing cozy relationship between Sunflower and the state’s health and environment department.

KDHE did not immediately comment following requests Friday by phone and email from The Associated Press. But in his order, Moser said state law allowed him to issue the “stay.”

Proponents of the proposed plant, adjacent to an existing one outside Holcomb in western Kansas, say it will bring crucial jobs and economic development to the region. Opponents say the plant will pollute, draw down water reserves and provide electricity that isn’t needed in Kansas. Colorado residents will receive much of the electricity.

Sunflower spokeswoman Cindy Hertel said the department’s action is fair to both the utility and environmental groups that oppose the plant, such as the Sierra Club, which has filed a legal challenge to the state’s decision late last year to let the project go forward. Hertel said the Sierra Club can’t complain, unless it was hoping to use its challenge to “run out” the construction clock.

Environmental groups have sued to stop construction of the plant, prompting Sunflower to delay construction. The permit requires plant construction to begin within 18 months. A court decision could still be a year or more away, the Star reported.

“KDHE’s order allows the Sierra Club to pursue its legal right to contest the permit while not impairing Sunflower’s legal right to construct the Holcomb expansion project,” Hertel said.

Normally, a company waits until a permit is about to expire before seeking an extension. Under that type of extension, the company’s project could be subject to laws implemented since the permit was first issued.

The extension allows Sunflower to build the plant under pollution laws in place when the permit was issued in December, avoiding new, stricter air pollution standards that took effect in January. The new laws would add tens of millions of dollars to the plant’s costs.

Under Thursday’s order, Sunflower will have one year after the state Supreme Court case is final to begin construction.

“KDHE is giving Sunflower another free pass to pollute and doing so without even allowing the public an opportunity to comment on this unprecedented move,” the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club said in a prepared statement.

“One has to question what else Sunflower will be excused from in the future,” Stephanie Cole, a Sierra Club spokeswoman, said in the statement.

Last month, the Star reported that a review of hundreds of emails showed a friendly relationship between KDHE and Sunflower staff. According to the newspaper, the health department allowed Sunflower to respond to questions from the public about the plant and then passed some of the answers off as its own. Those questions and answers were supposed to help shape the permit’s requirements.

A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he would not comment until the order was reviewed. He had previously told the Star that the request for the stay was very unusual.

EPA oversees the state’s enforcement of federal clean air laws and has raised concerns that the permit limits on certain emissions are too lax.

Construction was blocked in 2007 when Kansas became the first state to deny a building permit because of health concerns about greenhouse gases. But a change in governors led to a 2009 settlement agreement between then-Gov. Mark Parkinson and Sunflower that allowed the permitting process to begin again. In December 2010, KDHE approved the building permit for an 895-megawatt coal plant with an estimated cost as high as $3 billion.

After KDHE issued the permit, construction was delayed in January when the Sierra Club challenged the permit’s pollution limits.

Moser wrote in his order Thursday that anyone who disagrees with the order may file a motion with the state Supreme Court.

Cole with the Sierra Club said its attorneys were still reviewing the order.