I wrote this as a guest editorial that went unused so here it is as a blog post...
America's energy economy is rapidly changing. In the past several years, over 100 proposed coal plant projects were abandoned nationally. No coal plant construction has broken ground in over a year. The retirement of 20 aging, inefficient pulverized coal power plants have been announced in the last three months.
While coal is in decline, the growing Illinois wind industry surpassed 1,000MW of capacity in 2009 and created over 6,000 jobs. Springfield already gets about 19% of our power from wind. The General Assembly is now considering legislation to jump start Illinois solar power as well.
Additionally, President Obama is determined to revive the economy with green job programs like the home weatherization grants. Refrigerator rebate programs designed to reduce home energy use helped attract local jobs with the opening of an appliance recycling center in Springfield.
Unfortunately, the number of jobs created in central and southern Illinois may be limited by politicians who create an unhealthy environment for change. Massive taxpayer subsidies to the coal industry, combined with a comparatively weak effort to encourage wind and solar manufacturing, create a market unfairly distorted to resist a more diverse energy supply.
Public officials are celebrating Illinois' federal high speed rail grant. Of course they have to highlight the positive side, but it looks to me like Illinois is a loser.
Let's face it... Illinois finished third behind California and Florida. We received less than a third of what the state requested. California received almost twice as much as Illinois. Money for the Chicago-St. Louis corridor is less than half the allocation for just the Midwest region.
Our share of the federal grant isn't enough to start a modern 220mph high speed rail system. It's not enough for a double track that would speed up Amtrak and reduce delays caused by freight traffic. Although, it does provide for planning in preparation of double tracks. It most definitely isn't enough to consolidate rail lines onto the 10th street corridor in Springfield (which none of the freight companies have agreed to anyway).
One cause of the controversy over high-speed rail in Springfield is the popular view that passenger rail is primarily a Chicago-area issue. The impact and possibilities for downstate seem to be considered an afterthought, if at all.
A few news articles suggest that Springfield isn't the only downstate town not at the planning table. The Pantagraph reported:
It's not just Springfield where the push for high-speed rail has taken officials by surprise. At the McLean County Regional Planning Commission, for example, executive director Paul Russell said the proposed changes are not on the radar of McLean County transportation officials. "Neither we nor County Highways have received anything on this yet," Russell wrote in an email Wednesday.
Asked if there any planning documents that would outline the effects of high-speed rail on McLean County, Russell said there are not. "Currently there are no plans in place that specifically address this," Russell noted.
There are also plans for a Chicago-Quad Cities line, which would be excellent, but it's disturbing to read quotes like this one.
Many local officials haven't been briefed on the potential changes. "This is the first I've heard of it," Pontiac City Manager Bob Karls said Monday.
I'd guess that public support for the current plan is under 10% in Springfield. I wonder if that discontent will spread when other downstate towns learn how they'll be affected.
We know that the "energy citizens" rally coming to Springfield Tuesday is part of a national propaganda campaign organized by the oil industry.
Greenpeace exposed a strategy memo in which the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute explains that economic scare tactics are their best approach. They found that after spreading exaggerated estimates of job losses and rising energy costs of the Waxman-Markey bill, "these audiences changed their opinions on the bill significantly." Of course, their cost estimates rely on bogus Heritage Foundation studies funded by oil companies and they ignore more down-to-earth EPA estimates.
A principle organizer of Springfield's polluter rally is Illinois Petroleum Association lobbyist Dave Sykuta.
Count me in with the crowd that's happy to see funds to replace the Stratton Office Building across from the Capitol Building in Springfield. 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.
Being on multiple legislative e-mail lists, I received alerts yesterday advising me that the enormous hole in the state budget had been patched, again, through the practice of "fund sweeps." This phrase, one of those like "credit default swaps" that makes ordinary taxpayers' eyes glaze over, means that money sitting in various "special funds," instead of being used for the purposes for which it was intended and collected, will instead be diverted into the General Funds pool. Think of it as if you'd set up a special savings account for your childrens' education, or had a cookie jar in the kitchen where you put pin money to save for an upcoming wedding, but instead, when things are tight, you dip into it to pay your electric bill.
Interestingly, not one of the e-mails I got detailed which funds were being raided. So I checked. The bill itself, which got completely amended about a dozen times, is online. As a public service I am listing the funds, the amounts diverted, and a link to the bill at the end of this post (below the fold).
The list is mind-boggling. First, the total: $224 million in raided funds. That's a lot of lettuce.
Second, the sources. Probably you had no idea that we had 300 different funds to plunder, with opaque monikers such as the "Auction Regulation Administration Fund" from which we're plucking half a million bucks, the "Professions Indirect Cost Fund" from which we're diverting $2 million, or the "Subtitle D Management Fund" that will involuntarily donate a quarter-million dollars to this year's spending. Probably you also have no idea what all those funds do. I wonder if our legislators do.
The company that provides Springfield with wind power is building a new photovoltaic solar plant in less time than it takes to build a coal plant.
Unlike most large-scale solar plants, which use big mirrors to concentrate sunlight, the SunPower project will use the same solar panels that homeowners install on their rooftops.
It will be built in Florida's DeSoto County and will generate up to 25 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 18,750 homes. SunPower also will build a smaller facility, generating 10 megawatts, at Kennedy Space Center.
Both plants will be owned and operated by Florida Power & Light Co., an electric utility. The two companies are not releasing financial details of the deal.
As utilities across the country try to find cleaner sources of power, some are turning to large-scale solar plants. But most of those plants don't use photovoltaic panels, which generate electricity directly from sunlight. Instead, they use mirrors to focus sunlight, heat water, produce steam and turn turbines.
(politics from the gutter... - promoted by bored now)
This is a repost from my blog that I thought people might be interested in if you haven't been following the controversy over the Springfield Metro Sanitary District Board giving themselves a raise and then increasing rates by over 300%. The Board includes the Sangamon county chairmen of both parties.
The controversy is finally getting the local press to do a series of stories on problems with how county government is run that I've been writing about since I ran for county board in 2006.
So I'm beginning to see suggestions of a possible state government shutdown. The last government shutdown I recall was the federal one during the last Clinton Regime. That one ended up being a boon for Clinton and the Democrats.
It never even occurred to me that we could have one at the state level. I know, I know, I'm a bit behind it on the sophistication curve. So can such a thing happen here in Illinois? I guess I just assumed that without agreement that things would just plug along like they are now. And I guess that is what would happen if they decide to agree to not agree, just pass a budget without change.
Another observation is that in the face of a stalemate, there is no natural default position. In other words, if Emil Jones and Tom Cross both dig in their heels (and forgive the leader shorthand again, as it over-emphasizes the personalities of the leaders) and stick to their respective positions, even as the 31-day budget expires and the state government starts to shutdown, accepting a no-growth budget in the face of disagreement isn't any more natural than accepting a high-growth budget in the face of disagreement.
It was nice to see this blog named in the State Journal-Register editorial today, especially after I've written two blog posts within the last week that are pretty critical of the paper. I complain about the news industry often but my most frequent criticisms are systemic problems related to the nature of the industry and the shrinking number of its owners. Being a reporter or editor isn't an easy job and my experience has been that most do their best to be fair and accurate.
Asking their readers if they should keep Coulter's column is a smart decision and I hope they seriously consider the responses. You can let them know what you think by emailing them (letters@sj-r.com) and voting today in their online poll.
