Friday's Wall Street Journal editorial page highlights a Kansas problem that we Californians are familiar with.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius calls it "a moral obligation," as though she were opposing crimes against humanity. This is a reference to coal companies guilty of nothing more than attempting to provide power to consumers. But their misfortunes include emitting carbon dioxide into the current political atmosphere, and also the presence of Ms. Sebelius, who recently invented another way of enacting her preferred global-warming policies without legislation.

No one disputes that Kansas needs more baseload energy capacity to meet growing demand, especially at peak times and in the more rural west. In 2006, Sunflower Electric proposed to add two new generators to one of its existing coal facilities. The plans met or exceeded every federal and state air-quality and environmental regulation, and included the latest pollution control technologies.

But in October, one of Ms. Sebelius's cabinet secretaries, Roderick Bremby, denied Sunflower its permits. Using "emergency" discretion, he creatively ruled the expansion an imminent danger to the public – because the estimated 11 million tons of greenhouse gases it would emit each year might contribute to climate change. It was the first time ever that such reasoning formed the sole basis for blocking a power project; and, in the absence of any state laws relating to carbon control, it amounted to a public policy putsch.

Ms. Sebelius joined the green regulatory lobby that wants to unilaterally classify CO2 as an "air pollutant," though it has none of the qualities that have always defined the term under federal or state law. Her effort is also an opening charge for a national moratorium on new coal plants, which is backed by the likes of Democrats Harry Reid, Ed Markey and, needless to say, Al Gore.

By wide bipartisan margins, the Kansas legislature passed a bill resurrecting the project and closing the "discretion" loophole, telling Ms. Sebelius to obey the rules on the books. She vetoed that measure late last month, which the legislature will try to override today, and the votes may come up a few short.

This scientifically silly, yet high-minded, rhetoric will get a pass right up until Kansas starts experiencing brown-outs like those that happened in California several years ago. A few elderly people dead because their air conditioning failed in the summer heat and retail outlets and factories shutting down for a few hours at a time on a semi-regular basis will refocus the Kansas politicos.