Coal — as a fuel, as a source of jobs, as a prime driver of pollution — has dominated the debate over Illinois’ proposed energy policy overhaul. Moving toward clean energy requires a coal phaseout, so it’s understandable that the hows and whys of doing that would take up some of the oxygen in the room.
When should two coal plants that some suburbs and downstate communities lean heavily on, one in southern Illinois and the other in Springfield, be phased out? How much joblessness will the state’s move toward clean energy create? How much more damage to the environment will coal plants inflict if they’re permitted to continue operating?
But shunted off as a footnote has been a topic that should be the glaring headline: bailing out ComEd’s parent company, Exelon. This giant utility company, again.
Lawmakers couldn’t find agreement on the bill earlier this month but are expected to return later this summer to smooth out their disagreements. A big stumbling block has been a measure in the bill that would have set a timeline for the phaseout of the Prairie State Generating Station in southern Illinois, which got big investments from several Chicago-area communities. Those suburbs have resisted the phaseout. Unions, meanwhile, don’t like Pritzker’s proposal to lower carbon emission limits on natural gas plants, which could lead to shutdowns of those plants ahead of a 2045 closure deadline and job losses for their members.
But what’s the biggest problem for our pocketbooks with Pritzker’s proposed energy bill? If passed, it would slap on the backs of ratepayers $700 million in subsidies over five years to Exelon, the parent company of ComEd, to keep open three of the utility’s nuclear power plants.
That’s the same utility giant that won big subsidies from the General Assembly in 2016 for two of its nuclear power plants — after greasing the deal with jobs and contracts for allies of then-House Speaker Michael Madigan. ComEd admitted its actions in a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $200 million fine. Indictments of top ComEd executives and lobbyists followed, along with Madigan’s chief of staff.
Given the utility’s outsize profit margins, it’s impossible to justify yet another bailout.
We’re glad it didn’t make it out of the General Assembly yet and to Pritzker’s desk for his signature. There are far too many unanswered questions and deals struck behind closed doors.
When lawmakers resume work on the bill later this year, the first thing they should forge is a consensus to leave out the subsidies for the billion-dollar utility company. Despite widely known corruption in the deferred prosecution agreement with the company, the fact that it’s still on the table would be shocking in any other state. Not ours, though.
— Chicago Tribune