It’s just a bill
Tuesday, Mar 19, 2024 - Posted by Isabel Miller
* SJ-R…
The Illinois General Assembly advanced a whopping 186 bills out of committee over a three-day stretch last week before a Friday deadline. […]
Senate Bill 3219, led by Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, would allow the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity to provide grant funding to farmer-owned grocery stores. […]
Senate Bill 3225 would protect artists and their labels from third party users who create music using AI to replicate voices without permission for commercial purposes. With this bill, labels would be able to have a case in state court on behalf of an Illinois artist if their voice was used. […]
Senate Bill 2960 introduced by Sen. Laura Fine, D-Glenview would require hotels to stop giving out small plastic bottles of personal products. This includes small bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash that are found in hotel bathrooms. Hotels that violate this would be faced with fines up to $500.
* WHBF…
An Illinois lawmaker wants to give election workers some extra protection.
State Senator Steve Stadelman’s bill would create a new fine for harassing or abusing people who run the polling sites. Stadelman came up with the idea in response to the growing amount of harassment election officials are seeing across the country. He points to a recent report from the William Brennan Institute for Labor Studies that found one in three election workers has been harassed.
Stadelman’s bill would establish a maximum $1,000 fine for people caught harassing or abusing election judges. Political analysts say the increase in harassment coincides with a trend of fewer people signing up to be election judges. The bill is still in committee.
Illinois does not have any fines like this right now.
* WGEM…
A bill in the Illinois legislature would create a regulatory framework to streamline carbon capture and storage projects in the state.
Sponsored by state Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Swansea, the plan is backed by the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Climate Jobs Illinois and Matt Rush, the former president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association. […]
“With this legislation, we can decarbonize without deindustrializing our state. Illinois can lead the way sustainably and economically, ensuring that businesses will be able to innovate and grow for decades to come,” said Illinois Manufacturers’ Association President and CEO Mark Denzler. […]
The Sierra Club Illinois Chapter released a statement opposing the legislation:
“Illinois is woefully unprotected and unprepared for the threat from the fossil fuel industry to make Illinois a ground-zero state for carbon capture. The legislation introduced last week does not adequately protect Illinois communities, our water, and our climate from the dangers of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) because it focuses solely on sequestration. We need legislation that regulates CO2 pipelines at every point of the CCS industrial cycle, including at the point of capture and when transported through pipelines. We’re working with landowners, farmers, and advocates across the state to instead advance common-sense legislation that puts a moratorium on CO2 pipelines to ensure our water resources are protected and that all liability rests with private developers, not Illinois taxpayers.”
* Farm Week Now…
Illinois Farm Bureau opposes proposed legislation about carbon capture and storage projects in Illinois.
At a March 13 press conference in Springfield, a coalition of Democratic lawmakers, as well as business, labor and some agriculture groups, unveiled Senate Bill 3311 and House Bill 569. The bills create the Climate and Landowner Protection Act, encouraging the use of technologies that enable the capture of carbon dioxide for underground storage.
“We oppose the bill based on IFB policy,” said Bill Bodine, IFB director of business and regulatory affairs. “The bill includes an integration process that could force landowners into a carbon dioxide storage project without their consent.” […]
Matt Rush, former Illinois Corn Growers Association president, said during the press conference that the legislation could “help the corn ethanol industry pursue domestic and international low-carbon fuel markets.” But he also reiterated, “It’s important that any expansion is done in a responsible way that maintains the integrity of Illinois farm plans.”
* River Bender…
Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs is calling on lawmakers to support his initiative to create a new investment pool enabling nonprofit organizations to invest together in higher-interest portfolios and generate additional funds for their good works. […]
Frerichs’ proposal is advancing through the Illinois General Assembly in two bills, Senate Bill 3157, sponsored by Sen. Adriane Johnson, and House Bill 4908, sponsored by Rep. Mark Walker.
“The new program would be a powerful and flexible tool to help nonprofits achieve financial growth without making immense sacrifices,” said Senator Johnson (D-Buffalo Grove). “We are taking positive steps to pool assets and funds – maximizing the ability to invest in high-quality, short-term solutions to best serve the community.” […]
If Frerichs’ plan becomes law, the nonprofit investment pool would be structured in the same way as the Illinois Public Treasurer’s Investment Pool – also known as the Illinois Funds. The Illinois Funds allows units of government to invest their funds safely while benefiting from the economies of scale available through a pooled investment fund portfolio that exceeds $19 billion. The pool invests in liquid, high-quality short-term investments.
* Chalkbeat…
Illinois lawmakers and education advocates say Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed budget does not recommend enough money for schools to help newly arrived migrant students.
Pritzker’s budget proposal in February did not include an additional $35 million to support migrant students that the Illinois State Board of Education had requested in the budget proposal it submitted in January.
State Rep. Fred Crespo, a Democrat representing suburbs northwest of Chicago, has filed a pair of bills — House Bill 2822 and House Bill 3991— that would allow the Illinois State Board of Education to create a $35 million New Arrival Grant program that would distribute funding to school districts to support migrant students.
Crespo said he plans to amend the legislation to request $150 million for the grant program.
Both bills are currently in committees in the House.
* Center Square…
Most county clerks and recorders in Illinois could get a pay increase. A state lawmaker introduced a measure that would change the way county clerks and recorders across the state get their taxpayer-funded salaries.
The Illinois Association of County Clerks and Recorders is a proponent of Senate Bill 2131 from state Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, which says clerks have to be paid at least 80% of what the state’s attorney in that county is paid and that the pay is to mostly come from state taxpayer funds. […]
Turner introduced the bill and has the support of state Sen. Sally Turner, R-Beason, the former Logan County clerk. She said clerks aren’t paid enough and work extremely hard jobs. […]
The bill remains in committee.
- Chicagonk - Tuesday, Mar 19, 24 @ 9:54 am:
Farmers and the IFB are very short-sighted when it comes to carbon capture considering 40% of their corn sales go to ethanol.
- Red Ketcher - Tuesday, Mar 19, 24 @ 10:42 am:
“80% of what the state’s attorney in that county is paid”
Pass that and State’s Attorneys will be running for a no hassle County Clerk’s job. They usually make folks happy and State’s Attorneys take lot of flak.
- Payback - Tuesday, Mar 19, 24 @ 11:15 am:
Any carbon pipeline bills must prohibit the use of eminent domain to acquire private property. The use of eminent domain for the supposed “public good” is a loophole that corporations will use to seize productive farmland for population control purposes.
- very old soil - Tuesday, Mar 19, 24 @ 2:03 pm:
Payback, “for population control purposes”? I thought we did that with fluoride in the water. s/
- NoMoreMC - Tuesday, Mar 19, 24 @ 4:46 pm:
The proposed plan for carbon sequestration really troubles me. Just because we have good geology, doesn’t mean that this is the right thing to do. This state always means well and then cuts corners when things are implemented. That could be a big problem down the line.
The folks pushing carbon sequestration need a history lesson. Unless Im reading it wrong, HB569 appears to saddle the state with longterm responsibility for the storage fields. The companies pay a small fee per ton of carbon injected which is put into a fund. After the companies are done injecting, the wells are plugged out and handed over to the state. Everyone has to hope that the fund contains enough money to deal with any future problems. All well and good if you have the resources and the restraint to implement such a system. Resources and restraint aren’t known quantities in this state.
This basic framework was tried with oil and gas wells and it’s been a failure. For decades, oil operators had to keep plugging bonds on their wells to cover plugging costs if the wells were abandoned. If a company went under, the state could cash in the bonds and use the money to plug the wells.
Over the years, the state failed to require the bonds to keep pace with inflation and it also became difficult for operators to get bonds. Eventually, the system was changed to where DNR would release the bonds after a couple years and the operators started paying into a plugging fund. The plugging fund was supposed to be used by DNR to plug any abandoned wells. At the time, this sounded like a great idea. Unlike an oil company, the state will always be around, so give them the longterm responsibility to make sure all abandoned wells get plugged. At one point the state had a couple million in the fund and DNR was paying to plug abandoned wells. Then Rod and the GA decided to sweep the plugging fund. The program never recovered. Now we still have 10s of thousands of abandoned wells, many of them leaking, and very little money to plug them. That’s what happens when you leave money laying around in a fund. The state eventually finds a way to tap it. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is especially true if there are no problems for a while. If the plugged sequestration wells hold for 10 or 20 years, future GAs might think the money could be better spent. Then when leaks pop up 30 or 40 years down the line, we are all out of luck.
Who could possibly think that this state is responsible enough to ensure that the sequestration wells are monitored and maintained properly for decades, potentially hundreds of years? We have a terrible track record of maintaining longterm assets. Letting the Thompson Center fall into disarray was sad, but at least it didn’t threaten the state’s groundwater. Look at our prisons. Look at the state parks. None of them have been maintained.
North Dakota started the longterm state oversight idea for sequestration wells, but they have a robust oil and gas industry. They are the 3rd biggest oil producer in the US. They produce more oil in a week then Illinois does in a year. They have a huge staff of engineers, geologists and inspectors. They have enough resources to attempt to look after sequestration wells in perpetuity. It’s no secret that Illinois is not very supportive of oil and gas development. The industry has withered and state staff reflects this. This state is not full of geologists and reservoir engineers looking for state jobs and there’s no way the state is going to pay enough to bring them in from other states. You can’t just snap your fingers and suddenly have staff trained and systems in place to take on the responsibility of permitting and regulating these wells.
Ethanol companies and coal fire plants want to reap the benefits of being carbon neutral, but don’t want to deal with the longterm costs. If they want to inject CO2, then they should be required to shoulder the burden. They can provide bonds that can cover the future costs to repair leaks and make sure the state’s groundwater and the communities near the storage fields are protected. They can monitor the wells into perpetuity. This should not be the state’s responsibility.
If the GA wants this done, they need to be prepared to pony up the money the state needs to staff up and do this right. This can’t be another unfunded mandate. The money needs to be there on the front-end. Fees are all well and good, but you cant collect fees until after you issue permits. You need the money upfront to stand up the program before you can even start to collect fees. They also need to put any collected fees into a lockbox like IDOT got. The money better be untouchable because this is a longterm issue.
Sorry for the long rant. It just doesn’t seem like anyone is taking this seriously. The state went crazy over fracking and not many people seem to care about this issue which has the same potential to effect groundwater and cause seismic issues if it isn’t regulated effectively.