Kansas
Kansas City wants big federal money for sustainability projects, but it faces tough competition
Kansas City is dreaming big with visions of massive federal support for making the city greener than it’s been since wagon trains rumbled through these parts.
Last month, area governments submitted a request for nearly $200 million in sustainability funds with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Officials said they knew the effort would be epic in scale. The application included everything from bike trails to Civil War era settlements, subsidized e-bike sales, massive tree plantings and solar panels atop inner-city libraries.
Now, after grant requests from across America have landed at the EPA, it turns out the competition for the funds will be stiff.
Zealan Hoover, senior adviser to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, last week said, “We received $30 billion in proposals.”
That figure swamps the $4.6 billion the EPA will dole out to be spent over five years by cities, states and tribes on a wide variety of programs designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions and slow climate change and its devastating consequences.
The program is a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, which along with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of the Biden administration, was approved by Congress to help counter the lingering drag on our economy from the COVID pandemic and boost employment.
In an interview, Hoover told the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Talk podcast: “We will be funding the best of the best. It is unlikely everyone will be selected.”
Local government representatives who worked on the Kansas City area submission remain upbeat as they await EPA action promised in July.
Tom Jacobs, the chief resiliency officer at the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), said, “If EPA elected to make a partial award, we would be thrilled to receive any resources they though appropriate.”
Jacobs and his team spent months working with 119 cities in nine counties in Missouri and Kansas represented by MARC. Collectively, they came up with $197,823,216 of funding requests for 40 projects. The projects were an outgrowth of a Priority Climate Action Plan, which can be viewed at kcmetroclimateplan.org.
The plan’s principal goals are to leverage public leadership, achieve neighborhood resilience and critical infrastructure resilience.
“We believe we have $200 million in outstanding projects,” Jacobs said.
He said he had no way of knowing if the fierce competition for funding from around the nation means Kansas City can expect to receive all its requested funding, partial funding or no funding.
“I don’t have any idea how they are going to implement it,” Jacobs said. But according to grant criteria, “they said they would not evaluate line item by line item but by a whole body of work.”
The grant requests from the Kansas City region submitted to EPA were an outgrowth of “our exhaustive community conversation,” he said.
Any revisions of plans prompted by EPA’s decisions would result in an effort to fine-tune the area’s requests.
“I would go back to the community to see what game plan they would like,” he said. “We laid out a program of interconnected parts so each investment would be supportive of other investments. We would apply that philosophy to any revisions we make.”
“I want to be able to tell a story of how one investment connects to the next to make visible change in the community,” Jacobs said.
Realistic expectations
Hoover of EPA said that the federal government expects just that.
“Even if every applicant is not selected the benefits will be felt across the country,” he told Grid Talk. “I’m really confident that there are going to be fantastic climate pollution reduction grants … all across the country.”
“We’ve received over $30 billion dollars in project proposals so we will be funding the best of the best,” he continued. “We’re seeing really innovative proposals that are tailored to the needs of local communities and states.”
In Kansas City, that could be boosts to commercial food waste composting; planting of indigenous plants, shrubs and trees to enhance area bird and wildlife; construction of electric vehicle charging in areas of the city lacking such critical 21st century energy infrastructure; and tons of caulking and energy efficiency upgrades of the oldest, leakiest housing stock in the area.
Such efforts, collectively, are expected to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 5.45 million tons over 25 years.
All of it will fall under the umbrella descriptor: “Kansas City – Anchoring Climate Transformation.”
This story was originally published by Flatland, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Below is a look at the results from Tuesday night’s high school basketball sub-state semifinals in Northeast Kansas.
Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with what schools are hosting when that information becomes readily available.
WIBW Scoreboard
BOYS
5A East Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- KC Washington 68, Highland Park 38
- Shawnee Heights 49, De Soto 37 (will play Leavenworth Friday)
5A West Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Topeka West 55, Hutchinson 32 (will play Bishop Carroll Friday)
- Emporia 61, Great Bend 41 (will play Maize South Friday)
- Seaman 73, Valley Center 51 (will play Hays Friday)
3A West Franklin Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Burlington 60, Osage City 35 (will play Baxter Springs Friday)
3A Sabetha Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Hiawatha 73, Oskaloosa 48 (will play Heritage Christian Friday)
- Silver Lake 58, Sabetha 39 (will play Perry-Lecompton Friday 7:30 p.m.)
GIRLS
6A West Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Washburn Rural 60, Wichita South 32 (will play Derby)
- Topeka High 69, Maize 45 (will play Liberal)
- Manhattan 67, Free State 21 (will play Wichita East)
4A East Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Rock Creek 71, Parsons 23 (will play Tonganoxie)
- Wamego 54, Labette County 33 (will play Bishop Miege)
- Hayden 2, Athison 0 (will play Baldwin)
2A Eskridge/Mission Valley Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results
- Rossville 71, KC Christian 49 (will play Maur Hill-Mount Academy)
- Lyndon 61, Jeff. Co. North 31 (will play Valley Heights)
- Valley Heights 65, Doniphan West 41 (will play Lyndon)
Copyright 2026 WIBW. All rights reserved.
In early 2026, the Kansas state legislature passed SB 244, a law which prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms on government property that align with their gender identity and establishes a private right of action that allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for “damages” totaling $1,000.
The law also invalidates state-issued driver’s licenses with updated gender markers that reflect the carrier’s gender identity. In February 2026, transgender people across the state received letters from the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses “will no longer be valid,” effective immediately. SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans – or those born in Kansas – from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.
The same day SB 244 went into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of two transgender men who had their driver’s licenses invalidated under the law. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.
“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court for his role in a drug trafficking conspiracy and possession of an illegal firearm.
According to the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, 22-year-old Antoine R. Gillum was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison without parole.
His sentencing stems from a June 2024 incident in a metro gas station. KCPD investigators contacted Gillum inside and found that he had discarded a 9 mm pistol in an aisle between the merchandise. He also discarded a pill bottle containing multiple illegal substances: cocaine base, oxycodone/acetaminophen and oxycodone.
Officers searched the vehicle Gillum had arrived in and found approximately 32 grams of cocaine base.
On May 6, 2025, Gillum pleaded guilty to one count each of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jessica Jennings. It’s a part of ‘Operation Take Back America,’ a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
No further information has been released.
Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.
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