JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s environmental regulators already are making plans to respond to new federal regulations on emissions from coal-fired power plants.

President Barack Obama’s administration is expected to announce its proposed standards for carbon dioxide emissions next week.

That would launch a federal public comment period that could lead to the publication of final federal guidelines in June 2015. States then would have until June 2016 to submit their plans for implementing the guidelines to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
But officials at the Missouri Department of Natural Resources aren’t waiting long to start their work. They plan to convene a meeting July 14 in Jefferson City with groups affected by the proposed federal regulations.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The National Park Service is launching an initiative to make places and people of significance to the history of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual Americans part of the national narrative.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is convening a panel of 18 scholars that will be charged with exploring the LGBT movement’s story in areas such as law, religion, media, civil rights and the arts.

Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis says the committee’s study will be used to evaluate relevant sites for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, designation as National Historic Landmarks or consideration as national monuments.

The process mirrors efforts the service has undertaken for Latinos, Asian-Americans and women.

Jewell plans to announce the initiative on Friday at New York’s Stonewall Inn, which was established as a national landmark in 2000.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon is amplifying his opposition to a series of tax breaks passed by lawmakers.

Nixon said Wednesday the tax breaks could cost local governments $351 million of revenues annually. That’s on top of what Nixon’s administration projects as a $425 million annual reduction in state tax revenues.

The Democratic governor was traveling to St. Louis and Kansas City to make his point about the potential hit to local governments.

Republican lawmakers have disputed some of the cost projections.

Legislators passed about two-dozen tax breaks for specific industries, organizations or consumers. Some of those would exempt sales taxes for expenses by computer data centers, electric companies and restaurants.

Nixon has said he will make vetoes or budget cuts in response to the tax breaks.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) have once again teamed up to protect taxpayer dollars from use in Congressional earmarks-this time, introducing bipartisan legislation to claw back previously earmarked, but unspent, taxpayer dollars at the Department of Transportation.

McCaskill and Coburn’s Orphan Earmarks Act would void appropriations that currently have 90 percent or more funds remaining 10 fiscal years after being earmarked, as well as require the Department of Transportation to submit an annual report on each project that uses earmarked funds and which funds remain available at the end of each fiscal year.

“I’ve made it a top priority since joining the Senate to safeguard taxpayer dollars and put an end to the wasteful practice of earmarking,” said McCaskill, the Senate’s leading Democratic opponent of earmarks, a process that for years allowed members of Congress to direct taxpayer funds to their home regions for pet projects. “Our country is facing an infrastructure crisis, and this bill could help chip away at that crisis by redirecting these orphaned funds, allowing us to invest in our roads and bridges, grow our economy, and create jobs.”

“Dollars for earmarks that have been orphaned for more than a decade are either unnecessary, or are dollars that could have been used to repair roads and our nation’s 63,000 structurally deficient bridges. This common-sense proposal will force Congress to set real priorities and save taxpayers millions of dollars,” Dr. Coburn said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has found that continuing to fund unused “orphan” earmarks results in an enormous amount of waste and unnecessary spending, saying: “Even if Congress did not intend the grantees to have decades to decide whether to implement the projects, there is no budgetary mechanism to call attention to projects that are extremely delayed or to reallocate funding from inactive projects. As a result, some amount of budgetary authority that states could otherwise use to address current transportation needs is not available for that purpose.”

KANSAS CITY (AP) – Six former Internal Revenue Service employees have pleaded guilty to receiving unemployment benefits while they were working for the agency.

Federal prosecutors say the six former employees all pleaded guilty Tuesday and Wednesday to stealing government funds by fraud. The scheme netted the defendants a total of $66,030.

The employees were 32-year-old Michelle Glavinl; 34-year-old Christopher Castillo; 61-year-old Jesse Love; and 27-year-old Tiffani Harding, all of Kansas City; 41-year-old Shalonda Bradley of Grandview, and 59-year-old Berneta Weedin of Platte Woods.

As part of their plea agreement, the six will all be required to make restitution.

Sentencing dates have not been scheduled.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Republican political consultant is questioning whether supporters of an early voting initiative gathered enough valid signatures to get the measure for the November ballot.

Supporters have said they submitted about 300,000 signatures for a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow six weeks of early voting before Missouri elections.

Republican consultant Jeff Roe said he received copies of some of the petition pages under a Sunshine Law request. He projects that that the signatures will fall short in several districts.

Supporters remain confident they gathered enough signatures.

TOPEKA — A former Kansas state legislator pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding Farmers and Merchants Bank of Colby of more than $465,000, some of which he deposited in his campaign account, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Wednesday in a news release.

Trent K. LeDoux, 40, Holton, pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud. In his plea, he admitted he applied for three loans from the bank, falsely representing that he was going to use all the funds to buy cattle that would serve as the collateral for the loans. In fact, he used some of the money to pay off existing debts and to make contributions to his political campaign account.

Sentencing is set for Aug. 11. He faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in federal prison and a fine up to $1 million. Grissom commended the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Hathaway for their work on the case.