TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A key Kansas lawmaker who has been criticized for his weeklong absence says he was away on family business and was not paid during that time.

Republican Sen. Ty Masterson from Andover said he was in Texas on family business and declined to give specifics for privacy reasons.

Friday was the 99th day of the legislative session, which traditionally span 90 days or less each year. Lawmakers have been in a deadlock attempting to fill an estimated $406 million budget shortfall with tax increases.

Masterson is chairman of the Senate budget committee and was rumored to be on vacation over the past week while receiving overtime pay.

Administrative staff confirmed that he waived his pay, but the paperwork had not been processed due to the lack of a signature.

By Andy Marso 

Gov. Sam Brownback criticized the approach of the federal government in fighting climate change Thursday as he signed a bill asserting state authority over new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency power plant rules.

House Bill 2233 stipulates that the state will form a plan to comply with the new federal regulations but places several administrative hurdles in the way of that plan.

Brownback said President Barack Obama’s administration was trying to force through in its last years a rule that could greatly increase costs for anyone who pays an electrical bill. “The federal rule is expensive in terms of time, money and other resources that will ultimately make the rule one of the most expensive rules in the history of the United States,” Brownback said.

The governor also said the emissions reductions targets in the federal rule could jeopardize the reliability of the electrical grid.

The EPA instituted the rule in an attempt to stem carbon emissions that most climate scientists agree are causing dangerous fluctuations in the Earth’s climate. Those fluctuations have potentially deadly health effects, as they increase the severity of droughts and heat waves and change the traditional range of some diseases.

Brownback was flanked at Thursday’s bill signing by Rep. Dennis Hedke, a Republican from Wichita who chairs the House Energy and Environment Committee, and Sen. Rob Olson, a Republican from Olathe who chairs the Senate Utilities Committee.

Hedke is an outspoken skeptic of human-caused climate change and Olson said Thursday that he, too, does not believe carbon emissions are affecting the global climate. Brownback declined to weigh in on the soundness of the science, but rather criticized the federal approach.

“It seems to me that what you need to do in situations like this is be prudent and take your time,” he said. “By that I mean, we’ve got ways we can move forward that don’t involve huge rate increases and the possibility of the grid going down.”

Brownback highlighted voluntary utility purchases of wind energy that has grown cheaper in Kansas as manufacturing costs have decreased.

The EPA rule mandates that states lower the carbon emissions of their existing power plants, which will most strongly affect the state’s coal-burning facilities.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is empowered to form the plan, but the bill Brownback signed Thursday forms a committee made up of legislators who would have to sign off on it.

It also requires the Kansas Corporation Commission — the agency that regulates the state’s utility companies — to advise the committee on the costs of each plan and the Kansas Attorney General’s Office to determine whether the plan would affect the state’s standing in a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA for instituting the rule.

Some Republicans did not want to participate in complying with the law, but Olson said the Legislature ultimately nixed that idea because if the state did not form its own carbon reduction plan, the EPA would have stepped in to impose one.

“We didn’t want to have a federal plan put upon us,” Olson said. “We wanted to be prepared with a state plan if one is needed.” The governor Thursday also signed Senate Bill 91, which changes the renewable energy standards from a mandate to a goal and caps the state’s property tax exemption on devices that generate renewable energy at 10 years.

Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A 28-year-old Kansas man has been sentenced to more than 20 years in the death of an 8-year-old girl who was killed when he crashed into her minivan while fleeing from police.

Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerome Gorman says Tyrone Murphy Jr. was sentenced Friday to 251 months. He pleaded no contest in February to one count of intentional second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated battery.

Prosecutors say Murphy fled from a traffic stop in April 2014, ran a red light and struck the minivan of a family coming home from church. The crash killed Jasmine

Rodriguez, who had just given her first confession.

Toxicology tests showed Murphy had cocaine, marijuana and alcohol in his system at the time of the crash.

He was initially charged with first-degree murder.

SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating a reported e-mail scam.

Police Captain Mike Sweeney said a 41-year old Salina woman who advertises babysitting services on the internet, said a woman named Emily Smith contacted her through e-mail.

Smith said she was moving to Salina, and wanted to have the woman watch her 5-year-old son and run errands for her.

The victim received a check in the amount of $2,775 in the mail on the account of a business in Atlanta, Georgia and was instructed to open a bank account and deposit the check.

The woman did and spent $460 from the account before being notified by the bank that the check was fraudulent.

Topeka-Today Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law HB 2154, which includes authorization for all veterans eligible for federal education benefits, along with all current members of the armed forces, to be eligible for in-state tuition rates at all 32 public postsecondary colleges and universities in Kansas, effective July 1, 2015, regardless of time spent in the state.

In a media release, the State Board of Regents Chair Kenny Wilk said, “The board appreciates the efforts being made nationally and now here in Kansas to better serve our nation’s veterans and all current members of the armed forces. I am confident all our public postsecondary institutions will continue to do their best to serve these students and their families.”

Federal legislation passed last year, known as the “Veterans’ Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014,” requires all public colleges and universities to offer in-state tuition rates to veterans making use of Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, who live in the state where the institution they intend to enroll at is located, and who file a letter of intent to establish residence in that state. Eligible veterans’ spouses and dependent children also qualify for in-state tuition rates.

In addition to extending this benefit to veterans, Kansas has declared all current members of the armed forces to be residents of the state for tuition and fee purposes (including army, navy, marine corps, air force, coast guard, Kansas army or air national guard, or any branch of the military reserves of the United States), along with current members’ spouses and dependent children, who are enrolled or have been accepted for admission at a Kansas postsecondary educational institution.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Nine states are stepping into a lawsuit over the Utah prairie dog in favor of a ruling that animal activists say threatens to undermine the Endangered Species Act.

The attorneys general asked an appeals court on Thursday to uphold a ruling striking down federal protections for the Utah prairie dog on private property. They argue states should manage animals that live only within their borders.

But federal attorneys counter that most protected species live only in a single state and courts have long upheld federal authority to manage them. They are appealing a ruling from U.S. District Judge Dee Benson, who sided with Utah residents who said prairie dogs were overtaking their town.

Thursday’s friend-of-the-court brief was signed by attorneys general from Utah, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback has signed a bill that rewrites the rules for teachers, school administrators and other public employees who return to work after retiring.

The governor signed the bill Friday and said at a news conference that it would strengthen the pension system.

Public employees currently are allowed to retire but return to work and earn up to $20,000 a year while drawing their pension benefits. Schools regularly use the program for hard-to-fill positions.

The program expires at the end of June. The bill would make changes to the program after extending it for a year.

The changes are designed to prevent workers and employers from setting up post-retirement jobs before a worker retires. Also, workers would be allowed to earn $25,000 in their post-retirement jobs.

JETMORE, Kan. (AP) — Heavy rains this week have caused officials to open the floodgates on the HorseThief Reservoir dam in southwest Kansas for the first time since it was built in 2009.

Manager Joshua Hobbs tells The Hutchinson News that there’s concern some campsites around the 450-acre lake may be flooded with the weather forecast calling for more rain.

Hobbs says the lake is nearly full since torrential rains pushed the water level up some 11 feet. He says they received reports of up to 10 inches of rain at locations within the watershed.

Around six campers were in the park on Thursday, and some were debating leaving, but all the cabins in the park remained rented for the weekend.