GPACE History

The Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy (GPACE) is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization incorporated in Kansas in December 2007. GPACE is headquartered in Topeka, Kansas and was formed in the context of legislative attempts to overturn the historic Kansas Department of Health and Environment denial of air quality permits for a coal-fired power plant expansion.

In October of 2007, Secretary Rod Bremby of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, exercising statutory authority, denied air quality permits to two 700 MW coal-fired power plants proposed by Sunflower Electric Power Corporation for the Holcomb Station expansion. As a result, state legislators publicly announced that they would seek to reverse Bremby’s decision during the 2008 legislative session. At that point, Secretary Bremby’s denial of air quality permits for proposed coal-fired power plants was the ONLY instance of coal-fired generation in the nation delayed or denied on the basis of CO2 emissions tied to global warming, and adverse health and environmental impacts.

Read about Secretary Bremby's historic decision here.

Immediately after the KDHE denial, some legislative leaders publicly decried the decision, claiming it was “overreaching”, “unpopular,” and “out of step” with most Kansans. In the late fall of 2007, two separate independently conducted polls showed otherwise. Poll results released by the Land Institute’s Climate and Energy Project showed that statewide 62% of Kansans approved of the Bremby decision and opposed the plants; and a clear majority of Kansans agreeing with the KDHE decision in every one of the state’s four congressional districts (up to 70% approval in the 3^rd Congressional District). Furthermore, 75% of all Kansans statewide expressed their strong preference for greater development of the state’s vast wind resources. Despite overwhelming support by their constituents for the Bremby decision to block the proposed coal plants, leadership in the Kansas legislature vowed to dedicate their efforts during the 2008 session to overturning KDHE and forcing the state to approve the coal plants.

Legislative leaders set their sites on overturning the KDHE's decision, and stripping it of its regulatory authority. Read more here.

In the 2008 Kansas legislative session, Governor Sebelius vetoed three bills that would have forced the permitting of the proposed Holcomb expansion (1400MW) and stripped the KDHE Secretary’s authority relative to air quality permitting. Two vetoes were sustained without final action by the House, and one was sustained when the House fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to override. The final veto nixed a massive (likely unconstitutional) economic development bill that included incentives and money targeting every region of the state, including the same provisions that would have forced the permitting of the Holcomb plants and stripped the KDHE Secretary of authority to regulate emissions.

Hundreds of Kansans from all corners of the state joined to show support for the Governor and a new energy future for Kansas. Read here.

Along with individuals across the state, GPACE grassroots activism has been coordinated with other Kansas groups, including True Blue Women, the League of Women Voters, the Sustainable Sanctuary Coalition of Greater Kansas City, the Kansas Rural Center, the Kansas Natural Resource Council, Sierra Club (Kansas chapter), and student groups at several high schools, colleges, and universities.