Sunflower Electric Power Corp. filed a pair of lawsuits Friday seeking to overturn the state’s top environmental regulator’s denial of an air-quality permit for two proposed coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas.

Sunflower filed one lawsuit in the Kansas Court of Appeals and another in Finney County District Court. Both seek to overturn a decision by Rod Bremby, Kansas’ secretary of health and environment, to deny the permit for the $3.6 billion project.

Bremby rejected the permit on Oct. 18, citing the plants’ potential carbon dioxide emissions. Many scientists consider CO2 a major contributor to global warming, but the state doesn’t regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

“We firmly believe the secretary’s decision was wrong as a matter of law and we are confident that the courts will overturn this arbitrary and capricious decision,” said Mark Calcara, Sunflower vice president and general counsel.

Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokesman Joe Blubaugh said the agency had no comment on the filings.

“Until our legal team has briefed our executive, it is probably premature to comment,” he said.

Similar lawsuits also were filed Friday by Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc., of Westminister, Colo., the Finney County Commission and Garden City Chamber of Commerce, said Sunflower spokesman Steve Miller.

Hays-based Sunflower officials already had filed an appeal with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment asking Bremby to reverse his decision and to hold public hearings for more discussion. Sunflower’s partners in the project are Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. of Westminster, Colo., and Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, in Amarillo, Texas.

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