Where there's a Will, there's a way

Despite his office being bombarded with calls from rabid, out-of-state Rush Limbaugh listeners, Mark Kirk did a good job of representing his district when he became one of eight Republicans who voted for the Waxman-Markey energy and jobs bill.

Now that he's running for US Senate, his district is a top target for Democrats. Announced candidates are already appealing to eco-voters in the 10th Congressional.

I'm pretty far from the district, but I know about the strong environmental record of Julie Hamos, who declared her candidacy today. She has been particularly outspoken on the Clean Car Act and energy efficiency, which are both mentioned on her issues page.

I just got an email about another candidate, Elliot Richardson. I've never heard of him before but I like that this is the first issue he raises on the front page of his website:

The goal of energy independence is consistent with our mission to protect our environment. I will be a champion for the environment because our children deserve to inherit a healthy planet.

Dan Seals will run again. His previous campaigns included a strong environmental platform and that's probably one reason why Mark Kirk improved his green voting record over the last several years.

On the Republican side, there's talk of State Representative Beth Coulson, who has one of the best environmental records in her party.

So, there's no shortage of choices for voters concerned about energy and the environment. I don't plan to write about this race too often since any hot election in northern Cook and Lake county is sure to generate more than enough blogs by voters in the district. But, it should be fun to watch a primary debate between several candidates with appealing platforms in a district where the environment will be a determining issue.

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Obama's Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, wrote an editorial about the energy, jobs and climate bill now before the Senate.

Here is the future that I see. In the coming decades, the laws of supply and demand will almost certainly force oil and gas prices to rise. At the same time, the consequences of climate change will become so starkly apparent that continuing to emit carbon pollution at today's levels will be unacceptable. As a result, clean-energy technologies will be in high demand. Tens of thousands of windmills and solar panels will be manufactured and installed around the world. Consumers will demand more efficient vehicles, appliances, and buildings. There will be a race to produce the most advanced batteries and biofuels.

We must ask ourselves: How does the United States want to position itself in this future world? When the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky was asked how he positions himself on the ice, he replied: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it's been." America should do the same.

Coal lobbyists are adept at polluting the political environment with campaign contributions that are hazardous to good public policy. Over the next week I plan to write about several bills passed to subsidize Illinois coal even in the midst of a budget crisis. It's time to look at how realistic moves toward the future are getting body-checked by king coal.

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A free showing of The Take is tonight! I've shown some controversial movies and this is one of the best and most controversial yet.

City Nights Theater at Capital City Bar & Grill in Springfield. Movie starts at 7:00 Tuesday.

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One argument fossil fuel industry lobbyists often use against renewable energy is that it's too expensive compared to conventional coal power plants. So it's almost funny, after seeing them feign concern for the consumer, to watch as they push for expensive "clean" coal technologies like the proposed Taylorville Tenaska plant.

The Department of Energy stated that they abandoned FutureGen (a different plant with a similar approach) due to cost overruns. It's not Bush's conspiratorial revenge for placing it in Illinois instead of Texas. Two coal companies pulled out for the same reason. It's the same reason that FutureGen and the Taylorville Tenaska plant are seeking billions in government subsidies.

Unproven clean coal technologies are not economically feasible without massive taxpayer subsidies and will result in higher utility rates. There's no economic advantage to clean coal over real renewable energies like wind power or energy efficiency programs.

So, when the state of Illinois provides subsidies to coal projects, and requires that utilities buy expensive power from experimental new plants, it's not designed to help anyone except the coal industry. It's not a realistic solution to global warming. It's not clean. It's not affordable energy for consumers. It's nothing but a desperate attempt by the coal industry to remain economically viable in a new energy economy.

You might as well spend a billion dollars designing the world's fastest, cleanest, jet-powered horse and buggy ride. FutureBuggy!

(Mountaintop removal coal mining site)

Doug's post about the Taylorville Tenaska plant got me thinking about this today. He linked an SJR article about the state's latest effort to subsidize the new plant and artificially raise prices on consumers.

The article includes a vomit-inducing quote from state representative Garry Hannig about concerns raised by utility company Commonwealth Edison.

“They were concerned that some of the cost might be excessive,” Hannig said. “Now the Illinois Commerce Commission will have an opportunity to say yes or no to that. We have to prove to the power companies that we can produce this in Taylorville in a clean and economically feasible way.”

No, Representative Hannig, you don't have to prove anything to Commonwealth Edison. You have to prove to consumers and voters in Illinois that you aren't needlessly raising our utility bills to prop up a profitable coal industry.

How disgusting that it took another utility company to make Hannig and his colleagues finally show concern over how his bill will hit consumers! And doesn't it trigger alarms that even a utility company is publicly worried about how high this will raise rates?

I don't have a problem with the coal industry doing research. But when they come asking for corporate welfare payments then we need to ask what priorities make the most sense for everyone.

It's time to have a discussion about what options are best for consumers, the environment and the economic growth of downstate Illinois instead of letting coal industry lobbyists delude us into thinking that clean coal is a realistic solution.

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Count me in with the crowd that's happy to see funds to replace the Stratton Office Building. I've always called its design Stalinesque. The SJR did a fine job describing its "Cold War Civil Defense Fallout Shelter style."

Pictures of when the building was new make it look nearly tolerable. It was described as "modern" at the time which, in architectural terms, is nearly always a synonym for "ugly as sin."

Whatever the new building looks like, I know what it should be named. I want every legislator and General Assembly staffer who occupies the building to see the name of Senator Paul Simon at the start of each work day. Let's do away with the Governor who was indicted for illegal use of campaign funds (at least he was acquitted).

Simon had a test for ethical behavior in office. He said that he thought about how he would feel if whatever action he was taking wound up as a front page headline in a newspaper in his district. If he would feel ashamed of the headline, then he wouldn't do it.

That's what I want people who work in the new building to think about. Simon's reforming ways didn't make him the most popular member of the General Assembly among his colleagues, but he's still one of the most popular figures in Illinois politics. His modern day counterparts need to be reminded of who's held in high regard in history compared to the many forgotten legislators who went along to get along with a corrupt system.

This is an opportunity to leave behind an ugly building and symbolically leave behind an ugly tradition. It's time to stick legislative offices in the Paul Simon building, whether they like it or not.

Posted by Will at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm glad to see a group like the Capital Area Independent Business Alliance and I'm eager to find out what they do next.

It's not always easy, but I shop local and skip the big-box stores as much as possible. I haven't bought anything at a Walmart in at least seven years. If I'm going out to eat, I always think about locally owned restaurants first.

Capital Area Independent Business Alliance from iMakeTV.com on Vimeo.

The national and local Chamber of Commerce made it clear that they aren't reliable advocates for locally owned businesses. In the Springfield area, they supported several new Walmarts and proposed a restaurant tax that would hurt locals. They help turn city planning decisions over to those who have a financial interest in sprawl, which usually benefits big-box chains over local businesses.

As much as I appreciate what the Chamber does locally for charitable causes, it's difficult to ignore their extremist, pro-poverty, anti-union, anti-environment political agenda.

I don't know whether the Alliance see themselves as an alternative to the Chamber. My hope is that it becomes a group that progressive community leaders can work with without having to check their values at the door.

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Don't let anyone in the Illinois General Assembly tell you they passed a budget. They didn't pass the budget; they passed the buck.

At least two proposals would have created new criminal penalties and regulations related to the Burr Oaks cemetery tragedy. There wasn't a vote and no action was taken. How hard is it to pass a law that punishes people who throw bones in a weed patch and resell the lot?

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Lake & Prairie, the Illinois Sierra Club's newsletter, ran my short update on the state buying wind power and the CWLP agreement. Illinois Times readers may notice that it's similar to my editorial in May since both were written at the same time for different audiences.

I hate reading anything old I've written but I always enjoy grabbing the Lake & Prairie to find out what other Illinois Sierra Club groups are up to.

The latest newsletter advertises the annual Club fundraiser at Ravinia. Someone who couldn't use their ticket was nice enough to give me theirs and I had a great time. I haven't seen the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in years. Go next year if you're in the area.

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The Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign made a major announcement today.

As of today 100 coal plants have been defeated or abandoned since the beginning of the coal rush, including Enviropower, Indeck and Rentech coal plants in Illinois. In their place, a smart mix of clean energy solutions like energy efficiency, wind, solar and geothermal has stepped up to meet America’s energy needs.

Last year 42 percent of all new power producing capacity came from wind, and for the first time the wind industry created more jobs than mining coal. Illinois now has approximately 1,000 megawatts of wind power online, enough to power 300,000 homes.

A press release sent to me by Becki "good at fighting" Clayborn quotes one of the people who helped negotiate the Sierra Club agreement with CWLP.

"I was around for the first coal plants Sierra Club tackled, located here in the Midwest; against all odds and with literally only a handful of us who believed in fighting the plants. Now, only a couple of years later, there are thousands of grassroots volunteers who are helping defeat the construction of polluting coal burning plants. We are seeing a movement," said Verena Owen, volunteer chair of the Beyond Coal Campaign.

Campaign Director Bruce Nilles wrote on his blog:

That movement has kept well over 400 million tons of harmful global warming pollution out of the air, making significant progress in the fight against global warming. Stopping 100 new coal plants has also kept thousands of tons of asthma causing soot and smog pollution, as well as toxins like mercury out of our air and water.

I'm proud of the Sierra Club's agreement over the new Dallman 4 coal-fired power plant because it took Springfield in a new direction toward clean energy. But, it wouldn't happen today.

Newer activists can hardly believe that the Club compromised to drop an EPA appeal. If Dallman 4 were proposed today it would be fought to the end like every other coal-fired plant and probably defeated. People who still complain about the Sierra Club playing too tough don't realize how lucky Springfield's timing was.

Here's the video of Bruce Nilles talking about 100 plants down and more to go.

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Jeff Biggers writes at HuffPost about a new documentary, Coal Country.

As a groundbreaking clean energy counterpart to this summer's extraordinary Food, Inc. documentary on the agribusiness, the long-awaited Coal Country film on the cradle-to-grave process of generating our coal-fired electricity will be hitting the theaters next week with the big bang of an ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive.

And Big Coal ain't happy.
After a year-long campaign of threats and intimidation, the Big Coal lobby plans to have its Friends of Coal sycophants out in force to picket the premiere of the film on July 11, 7pm, at La Belle Theater in the South Charleston Museum in Charleston, West Virginia.

Biggers writes about a public hearing in West Virginia where a young man comes to the same conclusion I remember hearing in Harlan County, USA.

“Both sides are scared. And we’re screaming insults back and forth at each other, and I think we’re losing sight of the source of our fears. West Virginia is the poorest state in the country, and southern West Virginia is the poorest part of it. And I think people are scared that they will lose their jobs and be flipping burgers. You look out and that’s all you see. Mining and flipping burgers. And I argue that the coal company, that they want it that way. That they want that to be the only options. That is the only way they can get support on the way they treat their workers and treat our community.”

The soundtrack is by Kathy Mattea who's worth listening to even if you don't see the movie.

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Happy Independence Day!

I'm going overboard filling out "pick your five" quizzes on facebook. One is "the 5 proudest moments in American history." Not easy, but here's what I came up with.

Adoption of the Bill of Rights

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Sit-down strikes during the great depression

Creation of the National Park Service

Election of Barack Obama

Every dictatorship has a military. It takes something more to secure liberty and freedom.

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Illinois Issues has an excellent article on the growing wind industry in Illinois that mentions the Sierra Club agreement with CWLP.

One of the coal industry's most effective tactics is to create a sense of inevitability about their product.

They present coal as the first, last and only realistic option. They point out the limited amount of energy coming from renewable sources as though it won't expand. They point out how much coal is under the ground as if we're obligated to mine it like an infant who sticks everything it finds on the ground in its mouth.

This article shows the other side of the debate that we rarely see, especially in hopelessly biased downstate papers like the Southern Illinoisan. Their editors should look at this as an example of what good reporting looks like when you don't make every story a platform for coal industry advocates.

Even their article on people passionate about stopping global warming quotes the manager of SIUC's coal plant! Seriously, guys?!

I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a while and now I feel better.

(CWLP photo of Hancock county, Iowa wind farm)

Anyway, the article shows that the wind industry is becoming a realistic alternative to coal for economic development.

In a state that for decades has been dominated by coal and nuclear power, wind energy is steadily becoming a big deal in Illinois. Other states boast stronger winds, and some are further ahead in attracting investment from renewable energy companies. But many parts of Illinois are windy enough to be suitable for wind farms. Moreover, the state already has a well-developed transmission grid that makes it easier to dispatch electricity generated through wind power from rural sites to energy-hungry cities. And after falling behind other states in offering incentives, state government has taken a number of steps to make Illinois more attractive for wind development.

Of course, I like this part about Springfield:

After negotiations with the Sierra Club, the Springfield utility also is making a huge investment in carbon-free wind energy, drawing enough to power the Statehouse and other state office buildings. Even with the larger coal unit, CWLP is expected to generate 25 percent less carbon dioxide than it did before, a feat equivalent to taking more than 100,000 cars off the road. “Plus we still have some of the lowest rates in the state,” says Eric Hobbie, the utility’s chief engineer.

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