Skip to main content

A Clean Energy Consensus: Tough But Worth It

Matt Wald
The following is a guest post from Matt Wald, senior director of policy analysis and strategic planning at NEI. Follow Matt on Twitter at @MattLWald.

Building consensus is hard work, especially in energy policy. But when local governments, organized labor, environmental organizations and energy providers all come together, they can create a positive future for everyone. That’s what happened this week in the Illinois legislature in Springfield.

The legislature, in a special session, approved the Future Energy Jobs Bill, with strong bipartisan support. Governor Rauner pointed out in a statement that the bill will save thousands of jobs, and will protect ratepayers from large increases for years to come. With this law, Illinois follows New York in recognizing that like wind and sun, nuclear is a zero-carbon energy source and should be valued as such.

The bill went through many twists and turns over two years. Negotiations over its shape were long and hard partly because of the diverse list of parties involved. We hope it will be a model going forward, around the country.


Environmental Progress, led by Michael Shellenberger, rallied pro-nuclear environmentalists in Illinois and around the country in support of the bill. The Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out that the bill had the potential to improve the state’s efforts in efficiency and renewable energy. The Environmental Defense Fund listed similar reasons for joining the consensus behind the bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club also came on board.

And there was strong support from organized labor. Saving Clinton and Quad Cities protects over 4,000 employees, many of them represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, Iron Workers, Sheet Metal Workers, Carpenters, Boilermakers, the Building Trades and the AFL-CIO.

As Governor Rauner put it, “This process shows that when all parties are willing to negotiate in good faith, we can find agreement and move our state forward." We hope that he is heard in other state capitols, and in Washington.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should