The Kansas Statehouse in Topeka

Topeka ? Kansas legislative committees will consider bills to limit, or even suspend, state activities dealing with federal environmental rules when lawmakers return to the Statehouse Wednesday after their weeklong break.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee is set to continue hearings Wednesday morning that would limit the authority of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism to preserve habitat for threatened and endangered species.

Senate Bill 384 would amend the state’s Nongame and Endangered Species Conservation Act to provide that the department could adopt rules and regulations only to protect “critical habitat,” which is defined as an area where a threatened or endangered species is actually present, not an entire geographic area that could be occupied by such a species.

It would also prohibit the department from designating any area as critical habitat until it completes a recovery plan for the listed species. And it would exempt most farming and ranching activities, as well as residential or commercial development, from regulations the department adopts to protect listed species.

Also Wednesday morning, the House Energy and Utilities Committee is scheduled to vote on a bill that would temporarily halt any state agency activities related to implementing the federal Clean Power Plan until litigation seeking to overturn those regulations is resolved.

Kansas is one of several states involved in a federal lawsuit challenging the Clean Power Plan, which requires states to dramatically reduce carbon emissions from power plants over the next 15 years.

In other committee action Wednesday, the House Commerce Labor and Economic Development Committee will conduct an informational hearing on the impact of horse and dog racing on the Kansas economy.

A number of bills are pending in the House that would allow expanded gaming at dog and horse tracks.

Senate Bill 318 passed the Senate and would abolish the Kansas Electric Transmission Authority, an agency established in 2005 to help coordinate development of transmission lines to move wind power from wind farms in remote rural areas to larger urban markets.

All money held in KETA’s administrative fee fund, a little more than $251,000, which comes from assessments on utility bills, would be transferred to the State General Fund.

The bill passed the Senate, 37-2, on Feb. 11. Sen. Marci Francisco, of Lawrence, who serves on the KETA board and is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Utilities Committee which heard the bill, was one of the two no votes.