Energy Bill Talks "At Impasse"
The Prairie State Generating coal-fired power plant in southern Illinois, which is the bone of contention among talks on an energy bill.
There were more twists, turns and political posturing on the held up energy bill yesterday than on a typical day in Washington.
Well, maybe not. The posturing is pretty comical in DC most days.
The Climate Jobs Illinois coalition, led mostly by union folks, sent a letter to Governor JB Pritzker yesterday claiming “we are no longer confident that a deal can be reached this summer.”
More from the letter:
We sadly write to inform you today that as a result of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition’s failure to negotiate in good faith, we have reached what we believe is an impasse in reaching an agreed-upon clean energy bill due to seemingly intractable differences on the issues of decarbonization and prevailing wage standards.
We do not take this action without exhaustive deliberation and consideration, but in assessing our counterparts’ track record over the last several weeks of negotiations following the spring session, it appears they do not share our goal of finding common ground. Rather, they seem intent on running out the clock in order to force events that actually detract from the state’s ability to generate more clean and reliable energy.
Pritzker, who has sided closely with environmentalists like the “Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition,” shot back his own letter:
I will reiterate what I have said previously: any decarbonization framework must move Illinois aggressively beyond the status quo. That means good faith attempts at meaningful decarbonization are necessary to move our discussions forward. It is my understanding that the proposed draft language from Climate Jobs Illinois, sent to the Clean Jobs Coalition in June, would allow dirty power plants to stay open in perpetuity, threatening the health and wellbeing of the very communities that Climate Jobs Illinois’ letter states it wants to protect. Moreover, despite efforts to prop up coal plants, the market is forcing closures, outpacing our attempts to help impacted communities. We saw this with the recent Waukegan and Romeoville closure announcements. The bottom line is that pointing fingers at the Clean Jobs Coalition, whose members have already made significant compromises on decarbonization and equity provisions, is unproductive, especially after Climate Jobs Illinois has refused to send an additional written proposal that was promised to them for weeks.
Again, considering the timeline of events is important. Climate Jobs Illinois sent a letter to my office in the waning hours of May session, pleading with the Governor’s Office to make a deal with Exelon to save the nuclear fleet. We were able to do so. Then, at the 11th hour, we were informed that the fate of the Prairie State Energy Campus – the 7th largest emitter of greenhouse gas in the country, with voluminous amounts of co-pollutants that endanger the health and safety of Illinois’ residents—many of them black and brown—was now the new critical issue.
The bottom line is this: unions aren’t budging on attempting to stop plant closures and job losses. Progressives aren’t budging on their demand to close the coal plants and move the entire electric grid to nuclear, wind, and solar. (More on nukes in a moment.) Wind and solar, unfortunately, are more expensive to produce than coal and there isn’t enough infrastructure to meet demands. So, many people, some who even side with the Governor, know that closing coal plants mean we’re probably shipping in energy from Kentucky and Missouri…which is produced from coal anyway.
What’s being left out of much of the discussion is the precarious situation facing four Exelon nuclear plants in the northern half of the state. Exelon, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, has begun the process of shutting down the sites without a $700 million bailout from the state.
It appears, though, that the federal infrastructure bill, to get a vote in the Senate this week, includes $6 billion for unprofitable nuclear plants. But, according to Crain’s, Exelon says that won’t be enough to keep the Illinois plants operational.
“While we remain encouraged by growing support in Congress to preserve nuclear energy to help combat climate change, the provisions currently under consideration in the Senate infrastructure bill do not provide the policy and funding certainty we need and could take months or even years to come to fruition, if at all,” the company said in a statement. “Meanwhile, our Byron and Dresden nuclear plants must be refueled this fall—Byron in September and Dresden in November. If we refuel both stations to delay their retirement, we will be committed to running the plants for up to an additional two years, during which we could face revenue shortfalls in the hundreds of millions of dollars. We can’t risk taking those losses with no guarantee of a legislative solution.”
Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris), Sen. Brian Stewart (R-Freeport), Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), and Rep. David Welter (R-Morris) issued a joint statement yesterday calling for action. The four represent the communities with potential closures, in Byron and Dresden in Grundy County.
Sources tell The Illinoize the Senate likely has the votes for the nuclear bailout and keeping the coal plants open, but Governor JB Pritzker has indicated he’ll veto that bill. House Speaker Chris Welch has said he won’t call a bill Pritzker would veto, so we may still be in a non-starter situation.