Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law legislation that dictates Illinois to move to 100% clean energy by 2050.
The bill was negotiated by the state’s most powerful special interests – including ComEd, public sector unions and the Green Energy Lobby. Locked out of the negotiating room were municipalities, workers and Illinois ratepayers.
Today, State Representatives Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur), Brad Halbrook (R-Shelbyville) and Chris Miller (R-Oakland) released a joint statement:
The costs of Governor Pritzker’s Green New Deal is very likely to exceed any benefits.. The sponsors offered no estimates of the total cost of the bill, although the parts that have clear price tags add up to more than $1 billion. In fact, the title of the legislation was changed from the “Clean Energy Jobs Act” to the Climate Equity Jobs Act.” That’s important. It’s a recognition that the bill has nothing to do with providing low cost affordable energy.
Neither did the sponsors offer any strategy for moving the state successfully to 100% clean energy in less than 30 years. Nice trick, put a 30 year boondoggle in place with no benchmarks for success. In an effort to impose some accountability on these reckless legislators and special interests, we will be taking notes. We have a list of metrics the bill is supposed to reach. We will track:
- How much renewable energy comes online and where does it come from
- How much electric bills increase in Illinois
- Where our power comes from as coal is shut down
- How many electric vehicles are purchased by 2030 – 1 million??
- How many manufacturing business move out of the state
- How quickly manufacturing business move out of the state
- How many employees follow their jobs out of the state when manufacturing leaves
- And More.