* WCIA…

The Illinois House of Representatives and the Senate will be returning only a couple of weeks after their session was supposed to end.

The two chambers will be voting on a clean energy bill that couldn’t get the votes before May 31st.

“This is a landmark clean energy plan that both protects thousands of jobs and moves Illinois responsibly toward the future,” said Illinois Senate President Don Harmon.

A final version of the clean energy plan never surfaced during session. Negotiations fell apart at the last minute over the deadline being set for coal plants to shut down.

* Tribune…

An eleventh-hour disagreement over whether the Prairie State Generating Station in southern Illinois and a city-owned power plant in Springfield should be exempted from deadlines for shutting down coal-fired power plants by 2035 temporarily scuttled the compromise.

There were concerns, particularly among some Senate Democrats, about outstanding bond debt on the Prairie State facility held by municipal utilities, including in Batavia, Geneva, Naperville, St. Charles and Winnetka.

Pritzker’s office said he would not sign a bill that includes such an exemption, and lawmakers involved in the negotiations said the issue remains unsettled.

* Sun-Times…

Along with that legislation, lawmakers in the House are likely to debate and pass legislation that would create a partially elected school board.

Welch, who supports an elected school board, has already predicted that a measure creating a 21-member board will pass the state’s lower legislative chamber.

“I like the bill because it’s a move towards a fully-elected school board,” Welch told the Chicago Sun-Times last week. “I believe in more democracy — not less. I’m a product of an elected school board and believe that elections work.”

The Senate voted 36 to 15, with two voting present, to advance that bill, which must head back to the House where it needs a three-fifths majority to take effect within the next year.