The Sierra Club reached a precedent-setting energy agreement with Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) March 19, thanks in large part to two years of work by the University’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic.
For the past two years, the clinic has served as legal counsel for the Sierra Club in challenging KCP&L’s construction of a new coal-fired power plant and the expansion of an existing plant in metropolitan Kansas City.
Under the settlement, reached just as trial was about to commence, KCP&L will pursue offsets for all of the global-warming emissions associated with its new plant through significant investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy and cut pollution from its existing plants to improve air quality in the greater Kansas City area.
“This settlement helped the Sierra Club to achieve its goals of protecting public health and the environment,” said Maxine Lipeles, J.D., senior lecturer in the School of Law and director of the clinic.
The clinic took the case because it offered great interdisciplinary learning and service opportunities and involved air pollution affecting public health, one of the clinic’s priority areas, Lipeles said.
Students from the law school, the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering & Applied Science did the majority of the work on the case. They drafted nearly all the legal documents filed in the case, reviewed extensive documents produced by KCP&L and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), took depositions of DNR employees involved in the case, helped prepare the Sierra Club’s witnesses for and defended their depositions and prepared the case for trial.
“Although the parties reached an agreement, the students were prepared to give the opening statement, cross-examine witnesses and present our expert witness through direct testimony,” Lipeles said.
Clinic students describe their work on the case as an incredibly valuable experience.
“Taking the deposition of a key witness in this case stands out as a highlight of my time in law school,” said third-year student Brian Schnall.
“I gained invaluable experience preparing questions for the deposition, questioning the witness and dealing with objections from opposing counsel,” Schnall added. “The Environmental Clinic provided the unique opportunity to gain real-world litigation experience while still in school.”
Fellow third-year student Maureen Mahon agreed.
“It’s given me the opportunity, as a law student, to practice lawyering skills that many young attorneys wait years to be able to do,” she said. “The experience has been made even more rewarding in light of the successful outcome of the case.”
KCP&L plans to add 400 megawatts of wind energy, undertake energy-efficiency programs to reduce electricity demand by another 400 megawatts and take further steps to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions to negate the additional carbon dioxide to be emitted by the new plant.