In response to Governor Pritzker issuing a statewide mask mandate in Illinois schools, House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) released the following statement:
“For over a year, the Governor cut out a co-equal branch of government and ruled the state with unilateral authority instead of working collaboratively to handle the Covid-19 pandemic in Illinois. Governor Pritzker must put this continuing power trip aside and allow local health departments, elected officials, schools and most importantly, parents, to make decisions on these serious issues to help stop the spread of Covid-19.”
* IEA…
The pandemic is not over. The numbers in Illinois are going in the wrong direction. We need to keep our students in the classroom and keep them, and those who teach and work with them in schools, safe. Masks, along with other mitigation, such as ventilation, testing, appropriate cleaning and protective gear, are proven tactics.
The number one key to controlling the spread of the virus is vaccination. We encourage all who are able to get the vaccine to do so. It is the clearest path back to “normal” that exists and only about half of those eligible to receive the vaccine in Illinois have done so.
“We all want to get back to normal. Let’s pull together and take care of one another. Vax up and mask up. We owe it to our students and we owe it to each other,” said Kathi Griffin, president of the Illinois Education Association. “We’re so thankful to have leadership in this state that won’t let the virus fester and grow. But, it us up to all of us to bring COVID-19 to its knees.”
* IFT…
“We continue to be thankful for Governor Pritzker’s steady leadership throughout the pandemic. As school resumes soon in most Illinois districts, we welcome his updated mask mandate. With the large number of unvaccinated individuals and the rapid spread of the highly infectious Delta variant in Illinois, requiring masks in all schools is a prudent course of action.
“Science tells us that a layered approach will go a long way towards helping keep schools open and students, staff, and communities safe. In addition to mask wearing, we strongly urge all school districts and institutions of higher education to employ additional safety measures, including physical distancing, regular handwashing, adequate building ventilation, and regular COVID testing of students and educators.
“The sharp increase of COVID-19 cases in our state is a stark reminder that this pandemic is far from over. It is the responsibility of every one of us to do whatever is necessary to keep one another safe and bring this pandemic to an end. Our union takes that responsibility seriously and will continue to fight to help make that happen.”
Notice that neither union came out in favor of vax mandates.
This post may be updated.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Leader McConchie…
“The governor’s continued unilateral, go-it-alone approach on pandemic decision-making actively undermines the state’s ability to have broadly accepted mitigation strategies,” said Illinois Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods).
“The Governor encourages the public to be ‘all in Illinois’, but he himself refuses to be ‘all in’ with state and local elected officials who better understand their geographic areas and their communities’ needs. If he really wants to achieve the best possible mitigation results, he would abandon this singular approach and instead bring others to the governing table to ensure that mitigation efforts will be broadly accepted by the populace and effectively implemented. By continuing to exclude other state and local leaders, he is failing the people of Illinois who need statewide coordination, input and buy in from the public.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Jordan Abudayyeh…
Republicans need to spend less time complaining about doctors’ recommendations for ending this pandemic and more time actually trying to end it – by encouraging their supporters to get vaccinated.
…Adding… Gary Rabine…
Gary Rabine, a candidate for Governor, says JB Pritzker’s new school mask mandate is an unnecessary abuse of power, and he is calling on the Governor to allow school boards to make these decisions at the local level.
Rabine said the efficacy of mask mandates is sketchy at best. In the spring of 2020, a Danish study of 6,000 participants found that those who wore masks were just as likely to get COVID-19 as those who didn’t. Participants in the study were told to spend at least three hours outside their home and to practice social distancing and were then tested for COVID-19. The comprehensive study found no statistical advantage to those who wore masks.
“This is about control – not about science,” Rabine said. “We know that kids are at a low risk for the virus. Our kids had a rough year last year thanks to Governor Pritzker’s policies. We should allow local school boards to work with parents and students to set mask policies at the local level, instead of Pritzker’s one-size-fits-all solution. We need bold leadership, and we need to protect the rights of parents to make decisions for themselves and their children. I stand opposed to Governor Pritzker’s decision to infringe on parental rights.”
With a new surge of coronavirus infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people familiar with the effort said.
President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.
Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.
A number of universities and hospitals, the Defense Department and at least one major city, San Francisco, are expected to mandate inoculation once a vaccine is fully approved. Final approval could also help mute misinformation about the safety of vaccines and clarify legal issues about mandates.
Last fall, 36 residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home died of COVID-19 in a matter of weeks. After several reports and legislative hearings, Republicans sent a letter to the Illinois Attorney General to investigate if state statute applied to the “negligent and disturbing activities that arose.” […]
State Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, comes from the long-term care industry. He was one of 26 lawmakers who signed the letter.
“Any private entity that had that kind of situation would have been prosecuted for one death, two deaths, but 36 deaths,” Caulkins told WMAY.
To help ensure transparency, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) announced today that COVID-19 vaccination data for both residents and staff in long-term care (LTC) facilities is now available on the IDPH website at dph.illinois.gov/covid19/long-term-care-facility-data.
Given that LTC facilities have experienced a significant portion of COVID-19 deaths, particularly early in pandemic, this resource will be used for tracking COVID-19 vaccinations for both staff and residents in facilities across state.
The new site will display an interactive map where the user can choose to view either the percentage of staff or percentage of residents who have been vaccinated. The site will also show weekly confirmed cases, total confirmed cases, weekly COVID-19 deaths, total COVID-19 deaths, and vaccination rates.
Click here to go to the site. I looked at Rep. Caulkins’ home county of Macon. The worst staff vaccination rate is at Fair Havens Senior Living: 4.58 percent. That’s not a typo on my part.
I’m kinda wondering if Rep. Caulkins would support a vaccine mandate for nursing home employees.
I remember nothing but gratitude and relief from my own parents about the rise of polio vaccines in the 1950s. That’s what I found in a survey by polling pioneer George Gallup in 1954, shortly after Jonas Salk’s new polio vaccine became available.
Gallup found the American public to be generally “very optimistic” about the shots. Such optimism was what I expected from those seemingly more innocent and trusting post-World War II days.
But, reading on, I found more thorns among the roses. Asked if they were willing to take the new shot themselves, Gallup found 60% of Americans said they were willing to do it while 31% said they would not.
That’s remarkably close to the 35% who told Gallup they would not take a COVID-19 inoculation last year shortly after it was first announced. Even higher numbers — 45% — said they would not take the new vaccines for smallpox in 2002 or the swine flu in 2009.
So, I think that in the future many of us will look back on this era and view vaccine skepticism as a natural and predictable development. I also think that vaccines will help us live long enough to be able to look back.
COVID-19 transmission in Kankakee County on Tuesday shifted from “moderate” to “substantial,” the second highest metric from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID data tracker.
Areas with 1 to 49 cases per 100,000 people are considered to have moderate transmission, while 50 to 99 is substantial and 100 and above is high, according to the CDC.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) uses 50 cases per 100,000 as a target threshold for counties to aim to stay under.
The data tracker showed Kankakee County moving from 36 cases per 100,000 on July 24 to 50.06 on Tuesday, with Kankakee County Health Department administrator John Bevis saying there could be as many as 55.
All but six Illinois counties are rated as having substantial or high community transmission, according to the data tracker.
* “Mask up to keep it up”: Preliminary evidence of the association between erectile dysfunction and COVID-19
* Surprise dip in UK COVID cases baffles researchers: Hospitalizations in England have also started to decline gradually — there were 645 admissions on 1 August, compared with 836 on 25 July. However, Paget cautions that there is some indication that infections might now be creeping up again.
Sources briefed on the matter say the governor also will announce a vaccine mandate for certain state employees in positions that put them in substantial contact with the public, including prison guards and certain nursing home personnel. The state already requires masks to be worn in state facilities.
Pritzker has resisted such moves, but they have become much more frequent in other states and cities in recent days.
Pritzker, who’s made his handling of the pandemic central to his reelection bid next year, is stopping short of requiring all state workers to get vaccinated but will mandate it in settings where people are in the direct care of the state, including prisons, juvenile detention facilities and veterans homes. […]
Vaccine uptake has been sluggish among employees at some homes run by the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, with 63% of employees at five homes — including a brand-new one in Chicago that hasn’t opened to residents — fully vaccinated as of July 23, according to the department. That’s compared with 98% of residents of those facilities.
The vaccination rate is even lower among employees at the Department of Corrections, with just 44% fully vaccinated, spokeswoman Lindsey Hess said. While vaccination status is more challenging to track among inmates as they enter and leave the system, the rate was about 69% as of a recent count.
[ *** End Of Updates *** ]
* Subscribers know a lot more about this announcement…
Governor Pritzker will announce new Coronavirus protocols tomorrow, which may include a statewide mask mandate for schools, according to sources briefed on the matter. Details to come. An indoor mask mandate would be in line with CDC’s recommendations.
The governor’s press conference is today at 2:30. We’ll have live coverage.
* Also…
A statewide mask mandate could help provide political cover for school board members and district superintendents like this where meetings about masks get intensely heated. https://t.co/w6UojIRHZg
* Here’s a short audio clip from that school board meeting provided by a subscriber. The meeting most certainly wasn’t all “civil” as the above story claimed…
“They need to help themselves,” the guy said about Black people. What that has to do with mask-wearing is kinda beyond me, except that he seemed to happily say the quiet part out loud.
It was during an editorial board interview at the Daily Southtown, where I worked at the time, and the other four GOP candidates were older men who hated Nancy Pelosi. Well, maybe hated is too strong a word. But they made it clear they despised her and wanted voters to know they believed she was some sort of demon out to destroy all that was good about America.
Kinzinger was different. He said he had come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with a different view of the country. People in the military of different races, different economic backgrounds and different religious faiths had all worked together for one end. Their purpose was to achieve a mission, to succeed, and politics didn’t matter. He would try to work with Pelosi.
That’s what he wanted to bring to Washington, unity for the good of the country.
Kinzinger’s older opponents questioned his commitment to Republican values. But he calmly stood his ground. Something had to change in America, he said, if the democracy was going to survive.
Nearly 230 Republican members of Congress told the Supreme Court on Thursday that it should overturn Roe v. Wade and release its “vise grip on abortion politics.”
The new brief is the latest filing in a dispute that will be heard next term and represents the most significant abortion-related case the justices have taken up in nearly a half a century. The 6-3 conservative court, bolstered by three of former President Donald Trump’s appointees, could gut, or invalidate court precedent, and that’s what the GOP lawmakers are calling for.
“Congress and the States have shown that they are ready and able to address the issue in ways that reflect Americans’ varying viewpoints and are grounded in the science of fetal development and maternal health,” lawyers for 228 Republican lawmakers, including leadership in both chambers, told the justices.
At issue before the court is a Mississippi law that bars most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. There is no exception for rape or incest. The court will render its decision by next June, in the lead up to the mid-term elections.
“Congress and the States have shown that they are ready and able to address the issue in ways that reflect Americans’ varying viewpoints and are grounded in the science of fetal development and maternal health,” lawyers for the Republicans told the justices.
Signing on from Illinois: Reps. Mike Bost (IL-12), Rodney Davis (IL-13), Mary Miller (IL-15), Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) and Darin LaHood (IL-18).
In recent months, Kinzinger’s Republican credentials have been questioned as he has called out Trump for his role in the attack on the Capitol and for serving on the House panel investigating it.
The Illinois Republican’s support for ending Roe v. Wade is a reminder that he really is a conservative.
* Personal PAC…
While U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger was standing up to Trump’s big lie about the 2020 election, he enthusiastically added his name to a right-wing brief to the U.S. Supreme Court asking that Roe v. Wade be overturned—-with no exceptions for rape and incest!
The brief Kinzinger put his signature to is full of unscientific, anti-abortion propaganda and lies about women, doctors, pregnancy and abortion. This should come as no surprise as Kinzinger, Representatives Rodney Davis, Mike Bost and Mary Miller all have 100% anti-abortion voting records and were part of the 228 right-wing members of Congress who pledged their deep desire to have abortion become illegal, dangerous and deadly again for millions of American women, including those in Illinois.
With more than 20 states and counting already having passed “trigger laws” declaring that when (not if!) Roe is overturned, abortion will be illegal, this is no time to look past Adam Kinzinger’s big lie about the ability of women to make reproductive health care decisions for themselves. We must stand together to keep Adam Kinzinger and all his anti-abortion allies from outlawing abortion in our Illinois.
…Adding… Press release…
Minooka businessman Michael Rebresh has announced his candidacy for Illinois’ 16th Congressional District against incumbent Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R):
“I’m a father, a husband, a successful businessman of more than 23 years and, unlike Joe Biden, I actually DO drive an 18-wheeler,” Rebresh says. “I’m also a longtime Minooka resident and a staunch conservative Republican who supported President Trump in 2016 and 2020 - not based on his personality but based on his policies. That’s why today I am announcing that I’m running for Congress in Illinois’ 16th Congressional District.”
Rebresh says that he is the only announced Republican challenger to Kinzinger who lives in the district. “The people of the 16th congressional district DESERVE true representation and they cannot get that representation from carpetbaggers looking to profit from a quick political opportunity,” he said
But Rebresh says the worst offender is incumbent Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who has used his seat for his own gain – not the people’s. “He is a handpicked loyalist of Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,” Rebresh says. “While doing Nancy’s bidding and furthering his own interests, he ignored the riots that devastated Illinois’ cities and towns last year and failed to recognize the local thin blue line we all count on.”
Rebresh says that Kinzinger viciously attacked President Trump for the last five years and has ignored the concerns of the residents of the 16th district over and over again. He says that residents are concerned about their kids returning to school with mask mandates and theoretical political agendas being taught in the classroom. Rebresh also says that Kinzinger knew the risk that the Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants would be shut down a year ago, costing residents their jobs and causing energy costs to skyrocket, and did nothing.
“We can and must do better than Rep. Adam Kinzinger and, if elected to represent the people of the 16th Congressional District, I will,” he says.
Rebresh is the owner of Azamon Logistics and a longtime resident of the Minooka area where he lives with his wife, Sherry, and their three young children, Wyatt, Holly and Brett.
The Illinois Department of Public Health reports 6.1 million Illinoisans 12 years and older are fully vaccinated, or 56.7% of the eligible population. IDPH reports nearly 7.9 million residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine, or 72.9% of the eligible population.
Illinois has seen a recent spike in the last week in vaccination rates.
* As someone who is now having serious second thoughts about my Rolling Stones concert tickets purchase, I can relate…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday “there’s no mixed message” in his last-minute decision to skip Lollapalooza this weekend over concerns about the delta variant of the coronavirus after previously saying that the event would be safe and he planned to attend.
Pritzker less than two weeks ago said that he and his wife, M.K., planned to attend the massive festival, which drew roughly 100,000 concertgoers per day to Chicago’s Grant Park. “I think it’s OK, but again, people need to be aware that we are not past this pandemic. It is with us,” he said at the time.
Pritzker planned to go Saturday but his press secretary issued a short statement the following morning saying the governor chose not to attend “out of an abundance of caution.”
*** UPDATE *** Important…
The court expects those employees and contractors to “attest to their vaccination status by August 16, 2021.”
* Watch the U.K. to Understand Delta - The country lifted all its COVID-19 restrictions just as Delta peaked. What happens next will tell us how well vaccines are working.
* Unvaccinated People Need to Bear the Burden - Beyond limiting the coronavirus’s flow from hot spots to the rest of the country, allowing only vaccinated people on domestic flights will change minds, too.
* Notice that CTU doesn’t actually address the topic of a mandate…
According to CPS data, 82% of Chicago public school teachers have been vaccinated, well above the city average. Educators fought tooth and nail last winter for the opportunity to receive vaccinations, and for students and their families to be vaccinated. That fight continues. https://t.co/JdtEARQZ8C
* The Question: Should public employee unions in Illinois agree to mandatory vaccination for their members? Take the poll and then explain your answer in comments, please…
*** UPDATE *** AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch…
AFSCME encourages all union members to be vaccinated to protect themselves, their families, co-workers and communities. We have been working collaboratively with employers for months now to increase vaccination rates and the Delta variant is bringing renewed urgency to this effort. As employers seek to establish various forms of vaccination standards, AFSCME is prepared to address the impact on workers through the bargaining process to ensure that workers’ concerns are heard and addressed.
Dear Governor Pritzker and leaders of the Illinois General Assembly:
In spite of months of productive, thoughtful debates with a diverse set of stakeholders to create an aggressive plan to overcome the threat of climate change in Illinois, we are no longer confident that a deal can be reached this summer.
We sadly write to inform you today that as a result of the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition’s failure to negotiate in good faith, we have reached what we believe is an impasse in reaching an agreed-upon clean energy bill due to seemingly intractable differences on the issues of decarbonization and prevailing wage standards.
We do not take this action without exhaustive deliberation and consideration, but in assessing our counterparts’ track record over the last several weeks of negotiations following the spring session, it appears they do not share our goal of finding common ground. Rather, they seem intent on running out the clock in order to force events that actually detract from the state’s ability to generate more clean and reliable energy.
Following a June 16 meeting between Climate Jobs Illinois and the Clean Jobs coalition in Springfield, it was agreed that both sides would produce updated decarbonization and prevailing wage offset language. The lead negotiators for Climate Jobs Illinois submitted proposed language on decarbonization to the Clean Jobs coalition on June 27, and a day later, our negotiators submitted updated prevailing wage offset language to their Clean Jobs counterparts
Our coalition learned the next day—via a morning alert in Capitol Fax—that the Clean Jobs coalition had rejected our proposed decarbonization language. In at least 4 subsequent meetings since we provided alternative language on these two areas, the Clean Jobs coalition has failed to submit any counter proposals. That leads us to believe our counterparts have no intention of working with us.
Because of the group’s failure to negotiate in good faith, we are forced to declare an impasse in the negotiations. We do not relish this moment. No one wins in this scenario.Clean Jobs coalition has failed to submit any counter proposals.
As our state’s leaders, we implore you to step in and work to find a way to get a deal done. There is too much on the line: Tens of thousands of good-paying union jobs. Thousands of new jobs created to build our clean energy infrastructure of the future. Greater opportunities for underserved communities to have a fair shot at learning new skills and earning a decent wage to lift their families out of poverty. Energy efficiency for our public schools. Clean energy fleets for our public transit system. And so much more that is necessary to reduce emissions and generate new clean power sources.
As we see in the eroding shores of Lake Michigan and the hazy skies over Illinois caused by the wildfires raging in the West, the threat of climate change is not an imaginary or far-off problem. It is a very real and imminent danger for our communities.
As subscribers know, the unions’ proposal was dismissed out of hand as a non-starter. More at the link.
* From Nakhia Crossley on behalf of the Path to 100 Coalition…
Illinois legislators agreed in May, after years of discussion and debate, to expand renewable energy, create 53,000 thousand new jobs, adopt best-in-nation diversity and equity investments and generate billions in local property taxes. But that legislation has been delayed for months. Throughout the summer, solar businesses in Illinois have been forced to lay off workers and clean energy growth has ground to a halt. There’s too much at stake to delay any further. It’s time for our state’s leaders to forge a compromise that will move Illinois forward to the clean energy future we desperately need.
The impasse declaration comes just days after nuclear giant Exelon doubled down on its threat to close two of its power generators in mid-September and November — major pieces of Illinois’ energy puzzle that can’t immediately be replaced by other types of power generation. […]
According to draft language obtained by NPR Illinois, organized labor adopted environmental groups’ basic framework for so-called declining carbon caps until 2035, but also proposed a carbon offset program to allow fossil fuel plants to achieve “net zero emissions,” which would open the door to allowing those facilities to stay open beyond 2045.
Environmental groups balked at that idea, but labor complained its coalition had to learn about that rejection through the media, and not a direct response. In the four meetings since then, labor claims environmental groups have not put forward new ideas. The last meeting between the two sides was July 16.
Both sides say the fight over the last outstanding item — prevailing wage — is not as insurmountable. […]
But over the weekend, congressional Democrats surfaced new language for President Joe Biden’s $3 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes funding for unprofitable nuclear plants. But there’s a catch: federal support for those plants would be decreased depending on state support for nukes.
State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D-Chicago), a lead energy negotiator aligned with labor, said he’s eager to receive a briefing from Illinois’ congressional delegation about the proposal soon, but acknowledged it may take weeks until the final version is passed in D.C., which runs up against existing timing pressure from Exelon.
“It would be foolish to count on Washington but also foolish to ignore what’s happening in Washington and end up sticking ratepayers with a bill they shouldn’t have to pay,” Cunningham said Monday. […]
Additionally, September marks a deadline contained in FEJA wherein the Illinois Power Agency will be forced to give back to ratepayers more than $300 million that was supposed to be used for renewable energy projects if there is no legislative fix to prevent that mass rebate.
I’ve asked others for comment and will update when they respond.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Response letter from Gov. JB Pritzker…
Dear Climate Jobs Illinois,
I am disappointed to hear that you feel you’ve reached an impasse in climate negotiations with the Clean Jobs Coalition. As I have made clear, the time for climate action is now. Comprehensive, clean, equitable, and ethical energy reform is what the people of this state need and deserve, and the clock is ticking.
In your letter, you requested that I work to reach compromise with stakeholders. That work has been done. As you know, after dozens of working group meetings and hours of discussion and negotiation, my office sent a compromise bill to members and stakeholders on June 10 that reflected discussions in legislative working groups and included agreed upon policies. That compromise bill would phase out coal by 2035 (except Prairie State and City Water Light and Power (CWLP), which could stay open until 2045 with 90% carbon capture) and natural gas by 2045 through declining caps on greenhouse gas emissions, prioritizing equity investment eligible communities and dedicating $2 million per year in ratepayer funds to fund Prairie State’s 2035 decommissioning costs. It also would require prevailing wage on nearly every renewable energy project, with a 5-year exemption for equity eligible contractors, and require project labor agreements on all utility-scale solar and wind projects. Importantly, the compromise bill also contains robust ethics provisions, a new performance-based ratemaking system that would create thousands of jobs, and critical workforce and clean transportation provisions that would create even more jobs.
That compromise bill is the best starting place for you as you consider possible next steps. I have always believed that we can decarbonize while creating and maintaining good paying, union jobs. That’s why I negotiated a clean energy bill that would do just that. On May 31, President Drea and Vice President Devaney visited my office in Springfield to request that the Governor’s Office reach a deal on right- sized subsidies for Exelon’s Illinois nuclear fleet, as their number one priority for the legislative session. My administration was able to negotiate a deal that would provide needed short term financial relief to Byron, Dresden, and Braidwood over 5 years, thereby securing the near-term financial safety of Exelon’s entire Illinois fleet, saving tens of thousands of good jobs at a cost to the average residential ratepayer of just $0.80/month. That deal is reflected in the compromise bill that my administration put forward in June, a bill that I would sign immediately, ending the heartbreaking uncertainty facing the nuclear workers at Byron and Dresden, including those of our friends at IBEW Local 15.
However, the Illinois Power Agency needs significant time to set up this nuclear support program. The next capacity auction is in November. If a deal is not passed by around mid-August, some observers have indicated that there will likely not be enough time to save Byron and Dresden. Last week, Exelon announced its intentions to move forward with filing decommissioning plans for Byron and Dresden with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under those plans, Byron would close in September, and Dresden would close in November, causing about 1,500 workers—primarily IBEW members—to lose their jobs soon. The decision to draw a line in the sand to prevent potential job loss in 2045 over certain job loss in 2021 is a negotiating position that does a disservice to both workers and our climate.
I will reiterate what I have said previously: any decarbonization framework must move Illinois aggressively beyond the status quo. That means good faith attempts at meaningful decarbonization are necessary to move our discussions forward. It is my understanding that the proposed draft language from Climate Jobs Illinois, sent to the Clean Jobs Coalition in June, would allow dirty power plants to stay open in perpetuity, threatening the health and wellbeing of the very communities that Climate Jobs Illinois’ letter states it wants to protect. Moreover, despite efforts to prop up coal plants, the market is forcing closures, outpacing our attempts to help impacted communities. We saw this with the recent Waukegan and Romeoville closure announcements. The bottom line is that pointing fingers at the Clean Jobs Coalition, whose members have already made significant compromises on decarbonization and equity provisions, is unproductive, especially after Climate Jobs Illinois has refused to send an additional written proposal that was promised to them for weeks.
Again, considering the timeline of events is important. Climate Jobs Illinois sent a letter to my office in the waning hours of May session, pleading with the Governor’s Office to make a deal with Exelon to save the nuclear fleet. We were able to do so. Then, at the 11th hour, we were informed that the fate of the Prairie State Energy Campus – the 7th largest emitter of greenhouse gas in the country, with voluminous amounts of co-pollutants that endanger the health and safety of Illinois’ residents—many of them black and brown—was now the new critical issue.
We negotiated again in good faith and, taking both PSEC and CWLP at their word, agreed to allow them to remain open until 2045 if they installed 90% carbon capture equipment by 2034 – a date they expressed to legislative negotiators that they could meet. Our June legislative language further clarified that natural gas caps would be sector wide, rather than plant specific, and that IEPA rulemaking would, by law, be required to allow the cleanest plants to stay open the longest. This represented a good faith compromise, and one where both my office and environmentalists moved significantly.
I have negotiated in good faith as pro-coal forces have shifted the goalposts throughout this process. I indicated then, and I am reiterating now, that I stand ready and willing to sign the bill that reflected discussions in legislative working groups and included agreed upon policies that you received on June 10. If you are willing to remove the barriers to moving forward, the impasse you find yourselves at can be resolved. I now call on the General Assembly to pass that compromise bill immediately, save tens of thousands of union jobs that may otherwise disappear in mere weeks, and move Illinois toward a clean energy economy.
*** UPDATE 2 *** Senate President Don Harmon…
We were disappointed to learn the parties involved could not come back to the General Assembly and governor with an agreed path forward on a clean energy future for Illinois.
The Illinois Senate remains committed to enacting an aggressive, nation-leading energy plan that is renewable, reliable and affordable for the people of our state.
We are encouraged by recent news out of DC that federal leaders may reach a bipartisan agreement on providing billions worth of federal assistance to clean energy resources, which would be a major win for Illinois. We look forward to the outcome of those discussions.
Moving forward here, the Senate intends to keep discussions going with stakeholders in an effort to produce legislation that can get at least 36 votes in the Senate and 71 in the House in order to take effect in the immediate future. Our goal is to protect jobs and promote a clean energy future, because we can and should do both.
*** UPDATE 3 *** Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition…
To Members of the Illinois General Assembly and Governor Pritzker:
We write to regretfully inform you that negotiations between the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC) and Climate Jobs Illinois (CJI) around passing a climate and equitable jobs bill in Illinois have reached an impasse. CJI’s insistence on allowing all coal and gas plants to stay open and pollute forever is something our communities and climate cannot afford or survive. Further, CJI continues to seek full domain over new and emerging clean energy jobs, and to shut the door on opportunities for Black and Brown contractors to stake their claim in the new energy economy.
The cost of doing nothing is colossal. Thousands of union workers and solar installers are about to lose their jobs, as could teachers and first responders whose salaries are paid with property taxes dependent on the local energy sector. The impact on our climate and public health will worsen. Black and Brown communities will continue to be shut out of the clean energy economy while they disproportionately suffer the impact of pollution. Big utility companies will remain unchecked, raising rates and racking up profits while consumers foot the bill.
And, President Biden will be unable to meet his administration’s goals to contain the climate emergency we find ourselves in if the state’s biggest polluter - the Prairie State coal plant, which accounts for 28% of Illinois carbon emissions and is the 7th worst polluter in the country - remains open indefinitely.
For the past three years, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition has focused on building a statewide effort to pass nation-leading legislation that positions Illinois to do its part to tackle climate change, and to center equity and justice at the heart of our state’s energy future. We almost reached that point this May, and again in June, until the fossil fuel industry threatened immediate layoffs at planned new gas plants and the Senate delayed action on that bill at the last minute.
Since June, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition has been willing and eager to work with CJI on finding a path forward on a nation-leading climate bill. In June, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition received a proposal from labor that was a step backward. CJI’s proposal created unlimited carbon emission loopholes, allowing any polluting fossil fuel plant to stay open in the state as long as it wanted, and completely exempting gas plants from any pollution reductions for the next two decades. Further, CJI’s proposal would require small Black and Brown renewable energy contractors to jump through major hoops in a new state bureaucracy just to participate in the state’s renewable energy programs. In reviewing these proposals with existing Black and Brown contractors, they believe these restrictions would put them out of business, and instead stake labor’s claim on small renewable energy projects that union contractors historically have not been interested in building.
ICJC has been assured by CJI nearly daily since June that they were working on an alternate decarbonization proposal to find common ground and to achieve some possible alignment. That proposal never appeared, and now appears it is not forthcoming.
The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition continues to stress that the path to an agreed climate and equitable jobs bill must include real action on pollution reductions in the coming decade in order to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change, and ensure that communities of color are able to create wealth and equity in a clean energy future. We have expressed openness on how to get there, but we cannot sacrifice those principles.
To achieve a carbon-free power sector in Illinois, we have proposed a number of options, including the following:
• While we originally proposed achieving a carbon-free power sector by 2030, we agreed to shift those targets to the framework supported by the Governor and Senate President, which would be 2035 for coal plants and 2045 for gas plants, with interim targets so that we aren’t delaying action on climate for 20 years.
• We agreed to a proposal to allow the Prairie State Energy Campus and Springfield CWLP’s Dallman station to stay open until 2045 if they can achieve 90% carbon-capture by 2035.
• To address the concerns of the Senate President about immediate job impacts to gas plants under construction, we have expressed openness to prioritizing pollution reduction from power plants that impact environmental justice communities first, while allowing newer gas plants a longer time frame before they have to begin pollution reductions. This would allow those gas plants to get built.
On labor standards, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition has agreed to Climate Jobs Illinois’ proposed requirements that would apply to 96% of new renewable energy projects - up from 0% today - but seeks to create at least a viable pathway for new Black and Brown businesses seeking renewable energy contracts. We have proposed a number of options, including:
• Creating a prevailing wage carve-out for new Black and Brown businesses for a period of time to allow them to grow to the point where they can be union signatories. This was included in the bill in May.
• Allowing projects under a certain size - a size that labor historically has not and would not work on - to move forward without being subject to labor union standards, which has been done in every other state that has passed ambitious renewable energy policy.
• Allowing projects of certain types, such as small businesses, community centers, and churches, not to be subject to prevailing wage standards.
• Allowing projects built by businesses under a certain size to be able to work on projects and not be subject to the same labor union standards as large contractors.
• Allow clean energy developers to pay wages that are commensurate with the experience and training required to install solar panels, and not the $82/hour wage of a journeyman electrician that labor is demanding.
• Requiring additional efforts on the part of labor unions to diversify their workforce in the near-term.
When Climate Jobs Illinois was formed nine months ago, its top priority was saving Exelon’s nuclear plants; this was the sole focus of their late May rally at the Capitol. The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition saw potential for alignment around a nation-leading equitable climate bill in their intention to build significant amounts of renewable energy and create a just transition for fossil fuel workers and communities.
The potential for alignment still exists, but it cannot be achieved by putting the interests of large, multi-billion dollar fossil fuel interests first or shutting out communities of color from a clean energy economy.
We remain willing to roll up our sleeves to get this climate and equitable jobs bill done.
Deputy Senate Republican Leader Sue Rezin (R-Morris) and State Senator Brian Stewart (R-Freeport) along with Deputy House Republican Leader Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), and House Republican Conference Chair Leader David Welter (R-Morris) issued a joint statement calling for legislative leaders to reconvene the Illinois General Assembly at the earliest possible date to pass legislation that will keep the state’s nuclear fleet online and extend Illinois’ renewable portfolio standard (RPS):
“If action is not taken soon, tens of thousands of workers will lose their livelihoods, millions of utility customers across Illinois will begin paying higher energy costs, and we will all suffer an immediate environmental impact equivalent to putting 4.4 million additional cars on the road, emitting carbon and other harmful sources of air pollution. Too much is at stake to wait for the demands of every individual interest group to be satisfied in a comprehensive energy package. We must act now to pass the provisions there is broad agreement on, which include preserving Illinois’ nuclear fleet and extending the state’s renewable portfolio standard with incentives for critical solar and wind initiatives. We are committed to passing these items now and coming back to the table to negotiate the more long-term aspects of Illinois’ energy future with the various stakeholders between now and the General Assembly’s Fall Veto Session in October. Time is of the essence. We cannot wait until later this autumn to protect energy jobs, protect our environment, and prevent dramatic rate hikes on utility customers.”
Today, Governor JB Pritzker’s campaign released three ads featuring Illinoisans who came together and stepped up to help lead efforts in their communities to get Illinois through the COVID pandemic.
“It’s the people of Illinois all across the state who came together during tough times to lead the effort to save lives and protect livelihoods during the state’s response to the COVID pandemic,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “It’s the people of Illinois who motivate me every day and I’m excited to be running for re-election to continue to lift up working families and move Illinois in the right direction.”
No word yet if these are scheduled for broadcast or cable. I’ll let you know.
…Adding… The spots will begin running on broadcast and cable TV this weekend throughout the state. [Headline updated to reflect this new info.]
…Adding… The cable/satellite buy so far for the first week is $153,854.
Meet Jenica. When things were at their worst she volunteered to be part of the state’s response to COVID, one of the many nurses who put themselves at risk to save lives, and they needed protection to keep up the fight. Illinois health care workers never wavered, and people like Jenica showed us that together, there’s no challenge we can’t overcome.
Meet Corey. In addition to being a physician assistant, for seven years he’s been a committed member of our Illinois National Guard. And when I called on the Guard to help set up testing and vaccination sites they led the way to getting the job done. Our state is back to business because we refused to let this pandemic beat us, and people like Corey remind us anything is possible for Illinois.
Meet Doris and Rick. When COVID hit, they stopped production of bourbon at their distillery to instead make hand sanitizer for nurses, doctors, and other frontline workers. Like so many Illinoisans they understood that the only way through the pandemic was looking out for each other. Now the bourbon’s flowing again in Rochelle and we’re on our way back. I’m so inspired by the people of Illinois—we can accomplish anything if we continue to work together.
Governor JB Pritzker today announced Mike Ollen will lead his 2022 re-election campaign as Campaign Manager.
“I’m excited to kick off this campaign and continue to fight for the people of Illinois and lift up working families all across the state,” said Gov. JB Pritzker. “With Mike at the helm I know we will build a robust operation that is not only going to keep the Governor’s Office blue but also make sure we’re electing Democrats up and down the ticket across Illinois to keep moving our state in the right direction.”
Ollen is a Democratic campaign veteran of numerous US Senate and presidential campaigns, including those of former President Barack Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton, and Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. Pritzker also congratulated longtime political advisor Quentin Fulks on his new position as Campaign Manager for Senator Raphael Warnock’s re-election campaign in Quentin’s home state of Georgia.
“Quentin has been instrumental in our work to put Springfield back on the side of working families and make incredible progress for the people of Illinois. I’m so thankful to have had him on my team these past few years working to advance our Democratic values and I can’t wait to watch him continue to fight for the people of his home state of Georgia. I consider him family and I wish him the best of luck,” said Pritzker.
This week Governor JB Pritzker announced he and Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton will run for re-election to a second term in 2022, releasing a video that highlights the strength of the state’s response to the COVID pandemic and JB’s commitment to the people of Illinois.
That’s a huge opportunity for Fulks. Warnock’s campaign will be at the top of the national Democratic priority list, so a potential win there would be a very big thing indeed. And he gets to go back home.
There’s a new mover-and-shaker in Georgia politics who deserves your attention: Quentin Fulks.
The native of Ellaville – the tiny Georgia town that also produced comedien Blaire Erskine – Fulks was deputy campaign manager for J.B. Pritzker’s campaign for Illinois governor in 2018 and later oversaw the Democrat’s political operation while he was in office.
Fulks is now returning to his home state to serve as campaign manager for U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election campaign. The senator called Fulks a “national talent who brings vast experience and a love of our state.”
“I know he’s the right person to lead our campaign in 2022,” he said.
