Coal Lobby in Springfield Tries, Tries, Tries and Tries Again

By JoshMogerman in News on Dec 4, 2011 9:00PM

Persistence pays off in Springfield. Take the effort to foist a new “clean coal” plant on Illinois ratepayers that has been percolating in the General Assembly. We covered a parliamentary trick employed by Senate President Cullerton a few weeks ago to keep a bill on life support that would force the state’s utilities to buy electricity from a new downstate plant for the next 30 years. This week, the other shoe dropped as the bill narrowly passed in the Senate---the fourth time it was voted on after being dumped again, and again previously.

The bill had faced furious pushback from big names in the business and green communities who rejected the project’s pollution and what was perceived as a sweetheart deal to force more expensive electricity on ratepayers to the tune of nearly $300 million annually, including guaranteed profits for the plant’s developers. And that number might not represent the full cost to businesses and ratepayers since the bill will also force entities like CTA, Chicago Public Schools and MWRD to purchase pricy power from the new plant---costs that will likely be passed on to service users (ummm…you).

Sierra Club’s Jack Darin was flabbergasted by the process in Springfield, telling Progress Illinois that the plant being developed by Omaha-based Tenaska was like, "the monster in a bad horror movie who gets up off the floor after we assume they are finally dead." Other enviros were equally irked:

“Just in time for the holidays, the General Assembly is literally delivering a lump of coal to the people of Illinois,” Shannon Fisk of the Natural Resources Defense Council [told the Rock River Times]. “Merry Christmas — enjoy unnecessarily increased electricity bills! Happy Hanukkah — here’s a massive pollution plume! But Tenaska gets the biggest gift of all — a guaranteed profit funded by individuals and business throughout Illinois.”

For the plant to become reality, the bill still has to pass in the House next session and its powerful backers seem willing to pull out all the stops to make that happen. Crain’s Chicago Business reported that Tenaska began dangling a $30 million foundation grant to the Black and Hispanic Caucuses in Springfield for minority scholarships once the Senate vote narrowed to only a few votes. What will it cost the coal plant pushers to clear the rest of their hurdles in the capitol?