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Citing carbon emissions, Kansas rejects coal plants

Hard to say what John Marburger would say about this (more on him in a minute), but yesterday Kansas' Secretary of Health and Environment cited carbon emissions in rejecting the application to install two 700MW coal plants in western Kansas.

The move may be more about politics than about climate, but whatever the reasons, the decision was sold on climate and that's as important as it is surprising. It's also another loud declaration that the states aren't going to wait around for a national-level policy to move on climate mitigation. Here's hoping that the losers on this decision give more thought to developing a profitable wind project on the plains than to giving lawyers millions to argue the coal case. (The quote from the coal plant developer's spokesman, "We are extremely upset over this arbitrary and capricious decision" invokes the legal key phrase that spells l-a-w-s-u-i-t.)

News on the Kansas move comes on the heels of some bizarre statements on climate change from Mr. Marburger. I'm not sure what his agenda is, exactly, but the Washington Post today has him saying

...the target of preventing Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, "is going to be a very difficult one to achieve and is not actually linked to regional events that affect people's lives."

and

Marburger said that while there is general agreement that human activity is producing too much carbon dioxide and "you could have emerging disasters long before you get to two degrees. . . . There is no scientific criterion for establishing numbers like that."

I'm wondering what the point of saying this is. Is he trying to pave the way for the Bush White House to say, "We're not going to target 2 degrees, we're going to target 3."? Certainly his "not linked to regional events" statement is an absurd misdirection, completely ignoring risk while seeming to make a case for inaction due to incomplete information. His second statement essentially does the same, this time acknowledging risk but implying that it is not well-enough characterized to make policy choices. Are Mr. Marburger's statements part of a White House communication strategy or is this really how he is approaching and advising the problem?