Kansas Energy Bill Grants KCC Authority to Override Local Governments on Facility Siting

Kansas House Passes Sweeping Immigration Bill on 86-36 Vote, Barring Undocumented Residents From Public Benefits

House Committee Slashes Kansas University Budgets, Withholds $12M to Force Removal of DEI Content

Kansas City Launches $10M Housing Initiative to Combat 170% Surge in Homelessness

Suspected Bird Flu at Sedgwick County Zoo Triggers Heightened Biosecurity Protocols

Kansas Energy Bill Grants KCC Authority to Override Local Governments on Facility Siting

TOPEKA — A bill introduced Thursday in the Kansas House would grant the Kansas Corporation Commission power to set uniform, statewide siting and permitting standards for energy facilities, effectively limiting local governments' ability to block or delay wind, solar and other energy projects. HB 2728, referred to the Committee on Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications, would establish requirements and timelines for local action on energy facility applications, require developers to file decommissioning plans and maintain financial assurance, prohibit local requirements that impose an "undue burden" on construction, and bar the commission from engaging in ex parte communications with applicants or opponents — centralizing authority at the state level in a move likely to draw pushback from rural Republican lawmakers who have sided with landowner groups skeptical of renewable energy expansion.

Energy siting bill would give KCC power to override local governments

HB 2728 establishes uniform standards, bars ‘undue burden’ on facility construction

citizen journalGreg Loving

Kansas House Passes Sweeping Immigration Bill on 86-36 Vote, Barring Undocumented Residents From Public Benefits

TOPEKA — The Kansas House on Thursday passed SB 254 on an 86-36 largely party-line vote, sending to the governor a bill that would bar undocumented immigrants from receiving state and local public benefits, require proof of lawful presence for applicants 18 and older, mandate state agency cooperation with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to verify immigration status, and create a rebuttable presumption that a person determined to be unlawfully present is a flight risk for bond hearings — drawing sharp Democratic objections over constitutionality, process and the bill's reach, while even some Republican supporters acknowledged reservations about specific provisions.

Kansas House passes controversial immigration bill on 86-36 vote

SB 254 bars undocumented immigrants from public benefits; Democrats blast process, constitutionality

citizen journalGreg Loving

House Committee Slashes Kansas University Budgets, Withholds $12M to Force Removal of DEI Content

TOPEKA — A Republican-led Kansas House committee recommended a budget for the state's six public universities that freezes tuition, cuts need-based student aid by $2.3 million, applies a 2.5 percent reduction to operating grants at the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University, and withholds $12 million — $2 million per university — contingent on convincing the State Finance Council that critical race theory and diversity, equity and inclusion material has been removed from most required courses, while also shortening the timeline for firing underperforming faculty from two years to one.

Kansas Reflector

Kansas City Launches $10M Housing Initiative to Combat 170% Surge in Homelessness

KANSAS CITY — A city committee voted Tuesday to advance an ordinance authorizing $1 million in existing but unappropriated funds to overhaul Kansas City's approach to homelessness — where more than 2,000 people are homeless at any given time, the population has risen 170 percent in seven years, and 95.7 percent of the chronically homeless live unsheltered, the highest rate of any major U.S. city — with the goal of leveraging $10 million from public and private sources to house 600 people in its first year through a new "Kansas City Housing Gateway Program" modeled on successful Housing First strategies in Houston and Milwaukee.

Kansas City Star

Suspected Bird Flu at Sedgwick County Zoo Triggers Heightened Biosecurity Protocols

WICHITA — The Sedgwick County Zoo has tightened its biosecurity protocols after a wild bird found on zoo grounds showed potential signs of highly pathogenic avian influenza, a disease that is extremely infectious and often fatal to wild birds, commercial poultry and some mammals, with samples sent out for conclusive testing.

KWCH

McPherson Journalism Startup Earns State Innovation Grant

Citizen Journal among 16 Kansas companies receiving proof-of-concept funding through ACCEL-KS program

citizen journalGreg Loving

Sources

1. Kansas Reflector
2. Kansas City Star
3. KWCH

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