IL General Assembly Returns Next Week To Vote on Clean Energy Bill

By Benjamin Cox on June 9, 2021 at 1:11pm

The Illinois General Assembly is returning to work next week to debate an energy bill.

The two chambers will be voting on a clean energy bill that couldn’t get the votes before the end of session two weeks ago.

The Illinois Senate will convene Tuesday to vote on an energy bill that would include hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for nuclear plants owned by Exelon, the parent company of the scandal-plagued ComEd.

The state House is set to meet Wednesday to take up the energy issue and also consider an elected Chicago school board bill that was passed by the Senate in overtime on June 1st that would create the board in 2027.

Lawmakers adjourned their spring session that day without reaching an agreement on an energy plan that also would meet Governor J.B. Pritzker’s goal of setting the state on a path to 100% carbon-free power by 2050. ComEd parent Exelon has said it will shut down its Byron and Dresden nuclear plants this year if the state doesn’t provide more financial support. An alleged agreement was reached, but a late concern about the exemption from closure of a coal-fired power plant in Springfield and the Prairie State Generating Station in southern Illinois scuttled the compromise.

Lawmakers have told the Chicago Tribune and WCIA that an agreement on the energy bill still has not been reached.