Illinois House committee advances revamped energy plan with subsidies to ComEd parent that will cost
average customer about $4.50 a month
https://www.yahoo.com/news/illinois-house-committee-advances-revamped-185000235.html
With just four days before the threatened shutdown of one of states six nuclear power plants, Illinois House Democrats and Gov. J.B. Pritzker appear to have reached agreement on an energy policy that would set a path to a carbon-free future while also putting customers on the hook for a nearly $700 million bailout of scandal-plagued Commonwealth Edisons parent company.
The measures sponsor, Democratic state Rep. Marcus Evans of Chicago, said its estimated the package would increase power bills for the average residential customer by about $4.50 per month.
The plan, which also would require approval in the Democratic-controlled Senate before going to Pritzkers desk, has crucial backing from two of the majority partys key bases of support: labor unions and environmentalists. Those groups have been at odds throughout the summer over how to phase out two municipally owned coal-fired power plants in Springfield and near St. Louis.
The measure, sent to the full House Thursday afternoon following a 9-6 committee vote along party lines, would require the Prairie State Generating Station one of the top industrial sources of carbon pollution in the U.S. and Springfields city-owned plant to reduce climate-damaging emissions by 45% by 2035 and completely by 2045.