Business news with words department+environment. 8 news.

The lawsuit filed by the city of Neodesha against oil giant BP Corp. North America Inc. came down during closing arguments to a dispute on whether the Kansas Department of Health and Environment was incompetent in its oversight of the cleanup of pollution left behind by a former oil refinery in Neodesha. "The city really takes the position they don't really care what KDHE wants. This is their city and this is what they want done," Steven Lamb, attorney for the defendants, told jurors Wednesday. Neodesha attorney John Edgar told jurors on Tuesday that BP used the Department of Health and Environment as a "bodyguard" to get state approval for its plans and criticized an agency employee for not knowing how to do her job and not representing the people of Neodesha. But Lamb countered on Wednesday that the state agency has been reviewing the company's work and did not have a problem with the progress on their cleanup. "This isn't fraud," Lamb said. "KDHE knew exactly what we were doing."

In a struggle he likened to the biblical fight between David and Goliath, the attorney for the city of Neodesha told jurors Tuesday that it would be up to them to decide whether the world's second-largest oil company gets to use a small southeast Kansas town as its toxic waste dump. In a passionate plea to jurors, attorney John Edgar painted BP Corp. North America Inc. and its predecessors as huge corporations more concerned with making a profit than cleaning up the pollution they left behind. "To BP, Neodesha means nothing -- except as a place where they have to spend money," he told jurors during closing arguments, which began Tuesday. Neodesha is seeking more than $423 million to recover the costs of cleanup and damage the city says came from an oil refinery that once operated there. BP Products North America contends it already has assumed full responsibility for addressing the contamination caused by the refinery and has committed publicly to remedial actions that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment deemed appropriate.

Sunflower Electric Power Corp. filed a pair of lawsuits Friday seeking to overturn the state's top environmental regulator's denial of an air-quality permit for two proposed coal-fired power plants in southwest Kansas. Sunflower filed one lawsuit in the Kansas Court of Appeals and another in Finney County District Court. Both seek to overturn a decision by Rod Bremby, Kansas' secretary of health and environment, to deny the permit for the $3.6 billion project. Bremby rejected the permit Oct. 18, citing the plants' potential carbon dioxide emissions. Many scientists consider CO2 a major contributor to global warming, but the state doesn't regulate carbon dioxide emissions. "We firmly believe the secretary's decision was wrong as a matter of law, and we are confident that the courts will overturn this arbitrary and capricious decision," said Mark Calcara, Sunflower vice president and general counsel. Department of Health and Environment spokesman Joe Blubaugh said the agency had no comment on the filings.

The state's top environmental official has approved construction of an ethanol plant in Dodge City, using the occasion to respond to criticism of his rejection of two coal-fired power plants. Opponents of Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby's decision to deny a permit for the two plants sought by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. said he was hurting economic development in western Kansas. "There has been speculation that last month's Sunflower decision would in some way threaten the ethanol and biodiesel industry in Kansas," Bremby said Wednesday in a statement. "That is simply not the case. Kansas is still open for business." Sunflower supporters, including legislative leaders, have blasted Bremby, who last month rejected the two 700-megawatt plants because of concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. They said Bremby's decision threatened nearly every industry in Kansas that emitted CO2. At the time, House Speaker Melvin Neufeld, R-Ingalls, said Bremby's decision "sends a clear message that economic development is not welcomed in rural Kansas."

The number of homes completed last month fell 23%, the latest data from the Department of the Environment reveals.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment yesterday became the first government agency in the United States to cite carbon dioxide emissions as the reason for rejecting an air permit for a proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant, saying that the greenhouse gas threatens public health...

US stocks have risen for a fourth straight week, sending the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to a record, after employment growth eased concern that mortgage losses will cause a recession. Fannie Mae and Morgan Stanley led banks, brokerages and other financial firms in the S&P 500 to their biggest rally since March 2003. Homebuilders surged the most since November 2000 after Citi Investment Research said their shares are cheap, Bloomberg News reported. The Labor Department said American payrolls increased by 110,000 jobs in September and the prior month's decrease of 4,000 was revised to a gain of 89,000. That quelled concern that home-loan losses are dragging down the economy. "Stocks look very good to me," said John Lynch, chief market analyst at Evergreen Investments LLC, which manages US$280 billion in Charlotte, North Carolina. "The jobs report suggests continued economic growth, which should translate to continued profit growth and good market performance." The S&P 500 rose two percent last week to 1,557.59. The index has rebounded 11 percent since August 15, erasing US$1 trillion of losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the five-day period up 1.2 percent at 14,066.01 after closing at a record on October 1. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 2.9 percent to 2,780.32, the highest since February 2001. The yield on 10-year US Treasury notes rose about 0.05 percentage point to 4.64 percent. Traders pared bets that the Federal Reserve will lower interest rates this month because of less concern the housing slump will weigh on the broader economy. The central bank reduced its benchmark lending rate by half a percentage point to 4.75 percent on September 18. Financial shares in the S&P 500 rose 4.5 percent. "We expect to return to a normal earnings environment in the fourth quarter," Citigroup Inc Chief Executive Officer Charles Prince said. His company is the largest US bank. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan also said the credit slump may be ending. Fannie Mae, the largest provider of money for US home loans, rose 11 percent to US$67.30. Morgan Stanley, the second-largest US broker by market value, climbed 9.4 percent to US$68.90. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Morgan Stanley's bigger rival, added 5.4 percent to US$228.50. The S&P Supercomposite Homebuilding Index gained 12 percent, the most in almost seven years. Citi analyst Stephen Kim said at the start of last week that the shares of builders such

Compulsory redundancy notices issued to Department for Environment staff make a national strike by civil servants even more likely, their union has warned