* NBC5’s Mary Ann Ahern asked Gov. Pat Quinn today whether he was planning to pick former US Rep. Debbie Halvorson to run the Illinois Department of Transportation. Nope…
“I like Debbie,” Quinn, who appoints the position, said after an event announcing funding for a high speed rail projects. “But I have someone else in mind.”
Halvorson was at the same event, so that couldn’t have been a pleasant moment for either of them. But you can be sure that Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. is happy as a clam. He’s in power and she isn’t. Plus, his district voted for Quinn and hers didn’t. Fairly simple.
* Sometimes, Facebook actually motivates people to take “real world” action…
A virtual war of words on a social networking site led to a real fight between two men in Franklin County Monday. […]
“The two had been arguing on Facebook most of the night, which then escalated into a challenge to a fight,” Jones said.
The two met up at the parking lot and went at it in front of several spectators who had gathered for the fight, Jones said.
A crowd gathered, eh? Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the term “flash mob.”
* But sometimes, Facebook just isn’t enough. As I believe I’ve told you before, some tea party folks are organizing “THE ILLINOIS STATE WIDE TAX REVOLT” on Facebook. So far, a bit over 100 people say they’re attending the April 15th march on the Statehouse to protest the tax hikes. That ain’t a whole lot. And there are some other problems…
I have a bus reserved to leave from Rockford Cherry Vale Mall to go to this event on April 15. So far 6 out of 56 seats are spoken for. If this does not change soon I will have to cancell the bus. Seats cost $30 round trip on a charter bus with toilet and DVD player. If you want to go contact me ASAP to reserve your seat. If not we will all be driving down, and gas cost a lot more than $30 round trip!
I have been talking to FOX New Network. They are gathering info so if they call you…let them know. I just got off the phone with… Michele Nunes with Fox.
You’d think as upset as some people are about this tax hike that there would be more interest in the protest. There’s still time, of course, but so far, that Facebook-inspired redneck brawl looks far more interesting to me.
* Speaking of the online world, racist, boorish newspaper website comment sections are causing some folks to take action…
When the Tribune and Sun-Times recently posted stories dealing with immigration, Sara McElmurry saw a familiar dynamic take shape. The online comments following the pieces were heavily negative, with some casting immigrants as parasites or welfare cheats.
So McElmurry, communications manager for the Chicago-based advocacy group Latino Policy Forum, shot an email to her “Comment Corps” — a list of 3,000 people she asks to intervene when she believes online comments have become bigoted or monolithic.
But it doesn’t always work…
She’s part of the Comment Corps, and this month she leaped into the fray after the Daily Herald published a story about a protest over alleged police harassment of Hispanics. The great majority of the comments criticized the protesters, and when Brito tried to present a different opinion, her posts were buried under a barrage of “thumbs down” votes (more than four generally hides the comment from view).
Some of those newspaper comment sections are just totally out of control. The inmates are truly running the asylum. What a stupid business decision that is. Of course, newspaper owners are not exactly known for great business acumen.
* Speaking of newspapers, I sent the Sun-Times an e-mail today asking the higher-ups to please, pretty please with sugar on top, take a look at why so many old stories are suddenly popping up on their RSS feeds as brand new. Just scroll down and look to the right and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I’m breathlessly awaiting a response.
A multimillion-dollar operation under state contract was supposed to be taking care of people with special needs. Instead, its employees are accused of fatally beating two residents and several incidents of abuse. […]
Forty-two-year-old Paul McCann suffered a brutal beating in January. The man called a gentle giant, who functioned at the level of a 6-year-old, was punched, kicked, and struck with a frying pan inside his group home for reportedly taking a cookie.
McCann’s death was ruled a homicide and two men were arrested. The family has filed a lawsuit…
The lawsuit claims that the group home employees would pile heavy books on McCann’s outstretched arms, then beat him when he dropped them.
Also, the lawsuit will allege that McCann had been abused before the Jan. 19 beating. Kathleen Slovick, McCann’s sister, noticed McCann had broken his nose in April 2010. In response to McCann’s broken nose, the Illinois Department of Human Services sent Lois McCann, Paul McCann’s mother, a four-word letter response that stated, “The findings were unfounded.”
State records obtained by CBS 2, which date back to 2003, reveal 33 cases of Graywood staff abusing residents. Those cases included sexual abuse, physical battery and alleged coercion of residents to attack each other.
Even worse, in 2008, a resident named Dustin Higgins was murdered by staff. That death prompted an internal memo from the Illinois Department of Human Services Inspector General. The memo warned that Graywood residents were at risk amid an increase of serious allegations of abuse and neglect.
A resident is murdered by facility staff three years ago and it prompted an internal DHS memo, but apparently not much else because human beings were still being sent there, even though it had a “substantiated abuse rate” which was double the state average. Great job, DHS. Raises for everybody!
They found caregivers dumping water on people when they wouldn’t do their chores or get out of bed.
Other cases involved employees biting, punching, and threatening the developmentally disabled clients they were taking care of.
Many only have the capacity of a child.
And, yet, this facility has received $30 million in taxpayer money since 2001? The mind reels. Thankfully, DHS is finally moving residents out of there next week. Too late for McCann and the rest, however. I do not understand how the people at DHS who knew about this place could possibly sleep at night.
One of the government’s prime jobs is to help care for people who cannot care for themselves. The abominable treatment of residents alleged at that facility and the unconscionably slow pace of state action makes me ill.
My great aunt is severely mentally disabled and lives in a facility in Iroquois County. I can’t imagine what would happen if my family found out something like that had happened to her. It wouldn’t be pretty, I guarantee it.
I can feel my blood boiling right now, so I better stop writing.
* The General Assembly is off this week, so the news is pretty darned slow around here, and my mind is on spring training. So, let’s have a bit of fun…
That would be Gov. Quinn with Jennifer Beals, the star of The Chicago Code.
* The Illinois Student Assistance Commission should win an award for boneheaded moves. On Friday, it sent out a notice that applications for MAP grants would be closed on Monday. It was the earliest deadline ever, and caught pretty much everyone by surprise.
Yesterday, ISAC backtracked and extended the deadline to Friday. But the extension may not have been out of the goodness of their little hearts…
One of the reasons for the extension may be due to a malfunction at the processing center.
“The processing center had an outage from Saturday to Sunday,” said financial aid office director Kathleen Brunson. “We told students we needed them to get that FAFSA done when they couldn’t, so I believe that’s the reason for the extension.”
Jordan said students used to be able to mail their FAFSA as late as August to be eligible for the MAP grant. The deadline then was shortened to July, then April 19 and now March 25.
Sheesh.
* I’ve been telling subscribers about this for several days, but haven’t posted anything here. A jumbled mess like this post seems as good a time as any…
The most vocal supporter of a proposed south suburban airport near Peotone is publicly opposing a former colleague’s apparent bid to be named head of the state’s transportation department.
Incumbent Illinois Department of Transportation Secretary Gary Hannig has announced he is stepping down after the spring legislative session, which is set to conclude by the end of May.
Former 11th District U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson told the Kankakee Daily Journal she is seeking the position and has the support of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois Senate President John Cullerton and others.
U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said Halvorson is not qualified to be transportation secretary and that any consideration of her for the post would endanger the airport plan and other state transportation issues.
If you wanna seem something really odd, though, watch Halvorson explain the new book she’s writing. Yeesh.
A top prosecutor said he spent hours filling out questionnaires, editing speeches and tending to other political duties while working for McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi.
Thomas J. Carroll testified Monday that he and other high-ranking staffers frequently did such political work during office hours under Bianchi’s direction.
“We had different tasks assigned us,” said Carroll, who served as Bianchi’s first assistant from 2005 until 2008, before he was demoted to a lower post.
Bianchi, a Republican serving his second term, faces felony charges alleging he ordered employees to do political work for him on county time. He has denied doing anything improper and remains in office.
* I don’t quite get the last sentence in this story…
Popular daily coupon website Groupon’s Chicago headquarters was the site of the first meeting of the Illinois Innovation Council.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s office says the Monday meeting focused on where Illinois can be a hub for innovation and where Illinois is an emerging leader, like clean energy, biotech and life sciences and information technology. […]
Other entities participating in the council include Reggio’s Pizza, Argonne National Laboratory and Baxter International Inc.
I bet that’s the first time Argonne and Reggio’s Pizza have ever been in the same sentence.
The use of traditional phone service has dropped to the point that broadband connections now exceed the number of landlines in Illinois.
Figures released on Monday by federal and state regulators showed that high-speed Internet connections outnumbered landlines in 2010 for the first time. Landline usage in the state dropped 31 percent from 2001 to 6.2 million, while the number of high-speed connections jumped from 423,000 to 6.4 million in that period.
Landlines have trailed mobile wireless connections since 2005. Illinois had about 11.6 million wireless subscribers last year.
* Those of you with children about to get a driver’s license, beware. Fees may be going up…
The maximum price high schools can charge students for driver’s education might soon be increased, thanks to state Rep. Sandy Pihos (R-42nd).
Pihos is sponsoring a House bill that would push the standard maximum fee from $50 per student to $250 per student for those taking in-school driver’s education classes, beginning with the 2012-13 school year. Waivers would be available to districts who decide they want to charge more than $250.
According to Pihos, 33 percent of the state’s school districts already apply for and receive waivers from the state that allow them to charge more than the $50. Those waivers, Pihos said, range from $75 per student to $500 per student depending on the district. […]
“I’ve worked hard with the teachers association and the drivers ed association; they are in support of the bill,” Pihos said. “In fact, as far as I can remember, there’s nobody in opposition to the bill. Through the years I haven’t had a constituent call…and express a concern.”
This actually makes sense, since so many districts apply for what are generally automatically approved waivers anyway. But some parents may not be so enamored with the fee hike.
Lisa Madigan wants to publish the names of everyone who has a Firearms Owners Identification (FOID) card. The law requires everyone who owns or handles a gun to have a FOID card.
There are many youngsters who shoot in competitions and re-enactments who would be on this list. Publishing names of law-abiding citizens by government decree also reminds me of history, namely 1936-1941 and Hitler.
* Phil Kadner has an excellent column on the late Sun-Times owner Jim Tyree…
James Tyree was about 10 years old when his alcoholic father left home, and he and his mother moved from a house in Chicago’s Beverly community to a basement apartment in Oak Lawn.
“I got the bedroom, and she slept on basically a futon in the living room,” Tyree told me last year.
About 30 years later, having worked his way through Illinois State University, Tyree was managing a multimillion-dollar international investment business. […]
What impressed me was the receptionist in the lobby of the Mesirow Financial building. As I waited for my interview with Tyree, I asked her if she had ever met the man.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
What’s he like? A real jerk, I bet?
“He’s just the nicest person. Down to earth. Talks to everyone like they’re human,” she said.
And that turned out to be an absolutely accurate description. […]
The one thing that everyone I spoke with said about Jim Tyree was this: “He’s just a really good guy.”
Of all his amazing accomplishments in life, I think that may have been his greatest.
And I think he would be darn proud to have that as his epitaph.
The two of us meant to get together to talk about the future of the paper, but I never got around to it and then he got sick. From everything I’ve heard and read about the man, he was truly a decent guy. My heart goes out to his family and his many friends. His widow is having a particularly difficult time right now because her father died just two days after her husband passed away. My thoughts are with her.
* Meanwhile, I’ve spent many a night watching Pinetop Perkins play the Boogie Woogie at Rosa’s Lounge. Often accompanied by Sugar Blue on the harmonica and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on drums, the last of the great Mississippi bluesmen always put on a fine show. You had to get there early for the Saturday night shows, however, because Perkins stopped playing at midnight. He wouldn’t perform on a Sunday.
It was a thrill to see the 97-years young musician and Smith win a Grammy Award this year. But Perkins passed away in Austin, Texas yesterday. He’s gonna be missed…
Perkins’ skills came not from any sort of formal training but from an innate ability and love for a musical form that arose from the South’s plantation system.
“I didn’t get no schooling. I come up the hard way in the world,” Perkins told The Associated Press in a 2009 interview.
Bob Corritore, a harmonica player who performed occasionally with Perkins and produced some of his work, said, “Pinetop could find the cracks and fill them in and be the glue and mortar of the whole band.”
* For some reason or another, I forgot to post my weekly syndicated newspaper column yesterday. Not sure why. Here it is…
A big question on a lot of Statehouse minds right now is: Why would Senate President John Cullerton all of a sudden decide to string out his members yet again on a dollar-a-pack cigarette tax hike when he surely knows that the House will kill it for the umpteenth time?
Cullerton wants to raise money from the cigarette tax so he can kill off the controversial law legalizing video gaming in taverns, clubs and truck stops. Video gaming proceeds are supposed to subsidize part of the state’s massive capital construction plan, but the video gaming program hasn’t got off the ground after two years of preparations because the Illinois Gaming Board is taking its time to develop strict standards.
Part of the answer is that Cullerton loves the cigarette tax hike idea in and of itself. The man just downright loathes cigarettes and believes raising the tax would cause people to stop smoking and prevent kids from starting.
But when the four legislative leaders sit down to cut a deal, they’re supposed to stick to that deal unless the other leaders go along. The capital plan was just such an agreement. Breaking a pact like that is just not done. Ever.
You rarely see stories about the tax and fee hikes that fund the state’s construction program, and you don’t see many articles about some of the more questionable projects in the package. That’s because all the leaders vowed to each other that they wouldn’t stir up any trouble. Those vows are usually as solemn as any priest’s, so they’re never violated, but Cullerton is now doing it. Why?
Cullerton is said to be tired of Democrats being blamed for the video poker law, which has been blasted by most editorial pages in the state. “Maybe now they’ll understand that it was the Republicans who wanted this, not us,” explained a Cullerton aide last week.
The Republicans actually came up with the idea of legalizing video gaming in taverns, clubs and truck stops. But the Democrats have worn the jacket for the much-maligned program because they’re in the majority and the hugely controversial Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios was one of the top lobbyists for the video gaming industry.
It didn’t help matters much when former mobster turned government informant Frank Calabrese, Jr. told Fox Chicago the other day that he believed infiltrating the video poker industry would be a piece of cake.
“I mean, I laughed when I seen that,” Calabrese told Fox’s Dane Placko about the video poker legalization measure. “I mean, really. Why? I could go back there and show you how fast I could get in the middle of it,” he said from his Arizona house.
“It’s Math 101, OK? I’m not gonna go in there and put my name on a license and buy a bar and ask for three machines. I’m coming to you who’s totally legit and say you’re gonna buy the machines from this guy, and this is what you’re gonna pay him and that guy’s gonna help me in some way,” Calabrese said.
In the same story, former FBI organized crime director Tom Bourgeois told the channel that the General Assembly had opened the doors to the Outfit.
“You’re just providing an avenue for organized crime to re-root itself and find ways to become more powerful. It’s just too easy to do that and of course, the legislation provides opportunity for very little oversight,” Bourgeois claimed.
In reality, neither Calabrese nor Bourgeois are likely correct. For one thing, the current “amusement purposes only” video poker machines (most of which actually pay out in the real world) are already connected to the mob in one way or another. Legalization is seen by proponents as a way to get the mob out, not let them in.
To that end, the Illinois Gaming Board has spent almost two years attempting to devise a fail-safe plan to prevent organized crime from sticking its nose into the new business. A mobster just couldn’t strong-arm a tavern owner into using a particular machine, as Calabrese claimed, because machine distributors will have to undergo vigorous background checks and deal with strict government oversight — neither of which happens today.
So, publicly disassociating himself from video poker and letting Republicans take the lead in keeping the law on the books has real public relations and partisan advantages for the Senate president. And that’s why he’s doing it.
The Illinois State Board of Elections decided Monday that a deep-pocketed new political action committee does not have to disclose the original donors that provided the bulk of its funding.
In a 7-1 decision, the board agreed with a hearing officer’s reccomendation issued Friday that For A Better Chicago is not in violation of state by law by refusing to make public the source of $855,000 in contributions, which were used to help the PAC’s endorsed candidates for the City Council. […]
Greg Goldner, the chairman of For A Better Chicago, created a corporation in October called For A Better Chicago, which raised almost $1 million from undisclosed donors. The corporation transferred much of that amount into an eponymous, newly formed state political action committee in late December. […]
David Morrison, the deputy director for the ICPR, told the CNC it makes little sense that the For A Better Chicago corporation and political action committee are separate entities when both share the same office space and officers. He urged state lawmakers to address this opening in election law.
Donors to 501(c)4 groups are allowed to be kept secret under federal law, so I don’t see how the state is supposed to force it to open its books.
Rod Blagojevich’s judge scoffed at the ex-governor’s request to “cancel” his trial, essentially calling it a publicity stunt.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel said he had no legal authority to dismiss charges, that’s something only prosecutors can do. Blagojevich had asked Zagel to cancel his second trial and sentence him immediately.
Zagel said he believed the request was “intended for an audience different than the court.”
At a status hearing today in the case, Zagel suggested there was nothing to rule on, in part because Blagojevich’s lawyers did not properly present the motion to the court. With that, he suggested the idea would “vanish into thin air.”
But Blagojevich’s team persisted, asking for ruling. Zagel granted them time to properly file the motion – but not without making it clear how he felt about the idea, saying the team had not raised a legal question for a judge to consider.
* This is probably no surprise. Click the pic for a larger view…
Quinn’s not up again for a while yet, but Democratic legislators have to be experiencing serious indigestion problems right about now. They’re all up next year.
As I’ve said before, too much change causes reactions like this, and people are neither going to forget nor forgive this tax hike any time soon.
1,184 registered Illinois voters. Taken yesterday by We Ask America, which claims that “the poll was geographically balanced and had a 38%/31%/31% ratio of Democrats/Republicans/Independents responding.”
* It turns out that Gov. Pat Quinn did talk to a survivor of somebody who had been killed by an inmate currently on Death Row when the governor was deciding what to do about the death penalty. Technically, however, no survivors of victims killed by people actually sentenced to death row were consulted…
Quinn told reporters that he talked to advocates on either end of the death penalty spectrum while weighing the issue, but the governor specifically acknowledged he did not speak to any family members whose loved ones were killed by the 15 on death row.
“I think I listened to many, many people on both sides of this issue. I think it is probably impossible for me to talk to everyone,” Quinn said.
After Quinn made that statement a week and a half ago, his office Friday clarified the governor’s assertion that he had not met with any family members who had loved ones murdered by someone on Death Row.
In a late February meeting with anti-abolitionists, the governor met with prosecutors, the family of slain Chicago cop Thomas Wortham, and Roger Schnorr, whose sister, Donna, was raped and murdered by death row inmate Brian Dugan, Quinn spokeswoman Annie Thompson said.
Dugan was sentenced to life in prison for killing Donna Schnorr, but Dugan’s actual death sentence came in 2009 for the 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico, of Naperville.
* The Question: Should Gov. Quinn have taken the time to meet with more survivors of the victims of Death Row inmates? Explain.
* The AP and the Atlantic both ran stories over the weekend about Pat Quinn the liberal. The AP…
As Republican governors across the U.S. gain momentum with conservative agendas, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has stood out for signing a string of laws over the past three months achieving longstanding liberal goals: abolishing the death penalty, legalizing civil unions and raising income taxes.
“Governors like Martin O’Malley, [Illinois’s] Pat Quinn, and [Montana’s] Brian Schweitzer have been willing to sit down and work with us to come up with real solutions to real problems,” American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee said in a statement. “Our members understand the current fiscal situation and have made enormous concessions.”
* But Quinn is also pushing a bill that, in its current form, would strip 4,000 state employees of their union membership, according to AFSCME…
A week after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed a sweeping bill limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees, Illinois state worker unions are worrying that something similar may happen in Springfield.
Gov. Pat Quinn’s staff hopes to revive a proposal to strip collective bargaining rights from state workers in management positions. […]
Currently, 96 percent of the state’s more than 45,000 employees are unionized, but that number could climb to 99 percent because of requests to join unions pending before the State Board of Labor Relations, according to House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, who sponsored the bill in the House during the lame-duck session.
“If you want to run the ship of state, you have to have people who are able to stay past 5 o’clock, who are committed to working overtime and who, if privy to information that is important, have a clear allegiance and loyalty to the government, not to their union local,” Currie said.
Employees at the state’s Department of Human Services office in Skokie are claiming a “guarded victory” in their dispute over a plan that would have required them to pay for parking in a lot about two blocks from the facility.
Steve Edwards, president of Local 2858 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said that the union received an e-mail from the state saying the planned parking change would be put on hold indefinitely.
We are moving to Texas where there is no income tax while Illinois’ just went up 67%. Texas’ sales tax is ½ of ours, which is the highest in the nation. Southern states are supportive of job producers, tax payers and folks who offer opportunities to their residents. Illinois shakes them down for every penny that can be extorted from them.
In The Hill Country of Texas (near Austin and San Antonio) we bought a gracious home on almost 2 acres with a swimming pool. It is new, will cost us around 40% of what our home in Wilmette just sold for and the property taxes are 1/3rd of what they are here. Crook County’s property tax system is a disaster: Wilmette homes near ours sell for 50% more and their property taxes are ½ of ours. Our assessed home value was 50% higher than the sales price. The system is unfair and incompetent.
Our home value is down 40%, our property taxes are up 20% and our local schools have still another referendum on the ballot to increase taxes over 20% in one year. I could go on, but enough is enough. I feel as if we are standing on the deck of the Titanic and I can see the icebergs right in front of us. I will miss our friends a great deal. I have called Illinois home for essentially my entire life. But it is time to go where there is honest, competent and cost effective government. We have chosen to vote with our feet and our wallets. My best to all of you and Good luck!
Discuss.
* Related…
* Friday deadline for state financial aid, earliest cut-off in history
* Affluent schools also feel financial strain - Wealthier districts face unfamiliar cuts as tax revenue shrinks
* State school board reports 2,000 teacher layoffs in 2010
* School Districts Cut Teachers, Art, And Other Programs To Make Ends Meet
Lake Michigan, long considered the sewage outlet of last resort, has been hit harder during the past four years than it was in the previous two decades combined.
Between 2007 and 2010, records show, the agency in charge of Deep Tunnel dumped nearly 19 billion gallons of storm water teeming with disease-causing and fish-killing waste into the Great Lake, the source of drinking water for 7 million people in Chicago and its suburbs. By contrast, 12 billion gallons poured out between 1985 and 2006 […]
Last year alone, sewage overflows into local streams contained an estimated 335 million pounds of suspended solids, a technical term for human and industrial waste and debris contaminating the water. Signs caution that the waterways are “not suitable for any human body contact” and “may contain bacteria that can cause illness.”
District officials now say that while building the tunnels, engineers realized that they would need to rely more on the second phase of the project — the flood-control reservoirs — to reduce pollution. Another complicating factor is that the district was forced early on to limit how fast water drained into the system. Shortly after the first tunnels were opened, rapid changes in water pressure shot geysers of sewage out of ventilation shafts along city streets, in one case flooding the car of a 61-year-old Bridgeport woman who had stopped above a manhole grate.
Mayor Daley and others have routinely blamed Wisconsin for the lake’s pollution problems, but his own city is a major culprit. Go read all of Michael Hawthorne’s story. He’s a great environmental reporter and he’s done it again.
Government energy policy needs a reset at the state and national levels. Heavily subsidized efforts to harness the power of the sun, wind and atom have achieved less than anticipated. The pressure’s on to scale back the huge government investment in developing a sustainable, environmentally friendly future.
Because, you know, no government subsidies are ever needed for the oil industry. Funny, but I don’t seem to recall any multi-national military task force being deployed to prevent solar or wind power prices from skyrocketing (um, I mean, for humanitarian reasons to protect the revolting citizenry in a major solar/wind generating country). And, as we all know, the oil industry receives no other federal assistance, ever. Apparently, wars and gigantic tax breaks are free.
What an ill-timed editorial that was.
* The Trib’s editorial was ostensibly about supporting Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of the Leucadia coal gasification project in Chicago. It probably wasn’t a well-drafted bill. Indiana has approved a similar plant without much controversy because the state’s leaders claim to have included more consumer protections. Indiana’s project also has fewer environmental safeguards. But this really bothered me…
Having earlier secured $10 million from Illinois to study construction costs, Leucadia is certain it can build the Rockport [Indiana] plant for $2.65 billion, Lubbers said.
Great. We just financed the Hoosiers’ construction study. And this is bogus and Quinn knows it…
After Quinn killed the projects in Illinois, following public protests, he told the Chicago Tribune that “our investments in clean coal must not come at the expense of consumers.”
Consumers are also taxpayers, governor. And if clean coal was cheap, they’d be doing it already. Somebody’s gotta pay if we want to keep using that stuff.
* Before you commence commenting, let’s try to avoid a big debate on the Libyan conflict. I used it as only the latest example of US military intervention in an oil-producing country. The specifics of this intervention should be left to other publications.
* Related…
* Utilities, advocates at odds over regulatory changes: A controversial bill that would change the way Illinois sets utility rates in order to create incentives for companies to upgrade their electric power and gas lines is still alive, its sponsor said, but changes are being negotiated. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, D-Orland Park, said he will use the upcoming one-week break in the General Assembly’s schedule to try to draft a compromise to House Bill 14 that will allow lawmakers to consider the bill in early April… “We’ve seen those changes. They make something horrible less horrible, (but) the attorney general still objects,” said Paul Gaynor, chief of the public interest division for Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
* Exelon faces regulatory fallout after Japanese nuclear disaster: “These nuclear plants were believed to have operating lives of about 40 years,” says Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center in Chicago and a frequent Exelon critic. “Exelon has run the plants really hard. . . .It is wise and prudent to press the pause button” on the expansion plans.
* Worth the risk? Japan disaster could change opinions
