Did ComEd Kill the Clean Coal Bill?

By Kevin Robinson in News on Jun 3, 2008 4:30PM

According to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the answer is yes. On Monday her office accused ComEd -- and its parent company Excelon -- of lobbying aggressively to kill a bill before the state legislature that would have required utilities to purchase as much as five percent of their electricity from clean-coal plants. The bill, which House Speaker Mike Madigan strongly supported, failed in the House Saturday.

In a statement to the press, Benjamin Weinberg, chief of the public interest division for the attorney general said Madigan “is disappointed ComEd and its corporate parent, Exelon Corp., worked to kill the clean-coal bill in Illinois. Attorney General Madigan is anxious to return to the table, and hopefully this time ComEd will be negotiating in good faith.”

The legislation would have cleared the way for a 600-megawatt power plant to be built in Taylorsville, as well as a synthetic-gas plant for Jefferson County, both in downstate Illinois. Critics of the legislation charge that such construction is costly, and that those costs would ultimately be passed on to consumers. Negotiators from Madigan's office say that they met almost all of ComEd's original demands, including reducing the percentage of power suppliers would be required to purchase. In the end, ComEd was "concerned about rushing into a potential solution without a thorough study of the expected costs, risks and benefits for our customers."

Photo by cityofprogress