ACTION ALERT -- Last Chance to take action on Illinois Energy Legislation!
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Dear Beyond Nuclear Members/Supporters in Illinois,
Please see the likley final, urgent action alert from Nuclear Energy Information Service (NEIS) of Chicago on this matter, below. If you've already taken action, thank you! Perhaps take action one more time again. If you haven't, please do so now. Please spread the word. Thank you!
---Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear
NEIS ACTION ALERT!
Illinois’ Energy Legislation Due for Completion This Week Your LAST Chance to Tell Them What You Want!
7 competing bills; over 3,500 pages of competing legislation!
Greetings All –
This week negotiations are expected to conclude on final text for an energy bill. This is your last opportunity to tell your officials what you want in it.
In addition NEIS is holding a special Night with the Experts segment on Thursday evening to discuss the nuclear-related elements that are NOT being considered in legislation that will have significant impacts on Illinois energy future. When the inevitable problems become crises, the Legislature will be expected once again to bailout Exelon. Join us for this discussion.
1.) CONTACT THE GOVERNOR AND YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS:
We have long understood that the Illinois energy legislation that will be acted upon in 2021 will be an amalgam of pieces from the numerous proposed bills. Currently these bills cumulatively amount to between 3,000-4,000 pages of text. Except for discussion about bailouts, nuclear power is again excluded from detailed examination, significant nuclear-related issues have been ignored, and nuclear critics have been left out of direct discussions.
There are however items that must be included at all costs to end the continuous cycle of nuclear bailouts, subsidies, and threat of energy plant closures, all while trying to build an environmentally just and equitable 100% renewable energy system by 2050. Essential inclusions: Tell your State Senator and Representative that the final legislation MUST include these:
1.) No bailouts for Exelon’s unprofitable nuclear plants: You can’t build an energy future by bailout out the past. These reactors are solely the assets of a profitable private corporation – Exelon. It is their responsibility, and that of their Board, to find ways to run their assets profitably. Illinois ratepayers should not be viewed as an ATM machine for their corporate choices and failures. Nuclear bailouts have been shown to actually impede implementation of renewable energy. It’s the communities and workers affected by plant closures who will need the bailout, not profitable Exelon.
2.) Significant equity clauses and “just-transitions” packages for nuclear, coal, and other fossil fuel generator and mining communities faced with severe economic disruption as a result of their inevitable closures. Ideally, these programs should be initiated prior to facility closure when possible, and the funds escrowed to be available to the communities and workers to protect their tax base and create replacement economic opportunities when the facilities finally cease operations.
3.) Maximal financial support for an aggressive build-out of renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, and improved electric transmission. If you want a 100% renewable energy future, then build one. Get to the State’s goal of 100% renewables by 2050 directly. Don’t waste more of OUR time and OUR money on soon to be extinct fossil fuels and nuclear power plants. To insure energy equity, make sure these buildouts are given priority to communities already economically disadvantaged or damaged from dirty fossil fuels and nuclear power. In this upcoming negotiation, nobody is going to get everything they want. But it’s high time that WE finally get what we’ve been demanding for decades – a clean and equitable energy future! Now!
WHAT YOU MUST DO:
Contact your State Senator and Representative, and the Governor and tell him/her that you want these three demands included in the final energy legislation, due to be completed by Friday, May 14.
Go here to find out who your elected officials are and get their contact information. Follow the instructions found there:
How to find your elected official
Here is the page you can go to to leave a direct message for the Governor: https://www2.illinois.gov/sites/gov/contactus/Pages/VoiceAnOpinion.aspx
2.) NIGHT WITH THE EXPERTS, Thursday, May 20th, 7 p.m. Central TZ, on ZOOM.
We’re a little early this month so that we can discuss topics that are NOT going into the massive energy legislation expected to be passed by the close of the Spring Legislative Session on May 31. NWTE is open to the public. Bring guests and friends! And in the meantime – take action for a clean-energy future!
3.) Can Illinois get to 100% Renewable Energy Future without Nuclear Power? With the legislative debate winding down on creating an Illinois energy future, we've heard the question come up often, from legislators in hearings, to reporters, to regular folks:
Can Illinois Get to "Carbon-Free/Nuclear-Free" Energy?
Well, do you really want to find out? or are you just posturing and being rhetorical?
If you genuinely want an answer, then please watch the most recent installment of NEIS' "Night with the Experts" with Dr. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, who takes on this question head on:
Dr. Mark Z Jacobson Discussing “100 per cent Renewables is Possible” Thursday, April 29, 2021
Full version (with questions and discussion: TRT: 1:27:43 )
Jacobson presentation only: (TRT: 49:28)
Thanks in advance. We’ve done all we could. Your energy future is now in YOUR hands.
Be well, do great things,
--Dave Kraft, Director, NEIS--
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