"After careful consideration of my responsibility to protect the public health and environment from actual, threatened or potential harm from air pollution, I have decided to deny the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation application for an air quality permit," said Roderick L. Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE).

"I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing," said Bremby.

Some Kansas leaders have argued the nearly US$4 billion plant expansion was needed to create jobs and provide energy in the area.

The decision is the latest in a string of rejections for coal-fired power this year, including plants once planned in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma and Minnesota.

Bruce Niles, head of the Sierra Club's national effort to stop coal plants, called the decision a major victory and another sign of growing resistance to coal-fired power plants.

"It's a watershed moment," Niles said. "Kansas joins Florida and California and other states to stake out a clean energy future based on wind resources and rejects coal."

Coal power plants account for 40 percent of all US carbon dioxide emissions, a fact at the center of the resistance to expanding coal power plants. The two Sunflower units were projected to emit 11 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year.

Sunflower provides power for six electric cooperatives.

A recent study by the US Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) showed that plans for coal-fired power plants have been delayed in recent year.