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The Southern Illinoisan claims that if Sen. Barack Obama votes against the president’s “Clear Skies” initiative, he’s supporting outsiders over Illinoisans.

Environmental groups, as well as fellow committee members U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton are no doubt pressuring Obama to see it their way when it comes to this bill.

But Obama needs to remember that he has been elected to serve the people of Illinois not other interests.

This may come as a surprise to the Southern’s editorial board (or maybe not), but some of those “other interests,” are Illinoisans.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 12:10 pm

Comments

His daughter with asthma is one of those “other interests” too? Somebody tell the Southern Illinoisan he represents the whole state and as important as coal is to our economy, clean air is more important for those of us who live in already smoggy NE IL. Clean coal technology may be a pipe dream, but it’s still the best hope if Illinois coal is going to make a comeback.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 2:07 pm
So he should break the campaign promises he made to Southern Illinoisans? Also, clean coal incentives are a part of the clear skies bill.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 4:45 pm
He didn’t promise to allow the coal industry to drag their feet with outdated technology, such as using fluidized-bed instead of gasification combustion. Nor did he promise to allow the industry to use anything but the best available technology to control SOx, NOx, mercury or particulates. The coal industry still thinks it can cause the rest of us to choke while it profits.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 5:10 pm
He didn’t promise to allow the coal industry to drag their feet with outdated technology, such as using fluidized-bed instead of gasification combustion. Nor did he promise to allow the industry to use anything but the best available technology to control SOx, NOx, mercury or particulates. The coal industry still thinks it can cause the rest of us to choke while it profits.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 5:11 pm
SECTION: ILLINOIS SPOTLIGHT

LENGTH: 530 words

HEADLINE: Lawmakers seek to roll back less-stringent air standards

BYLINE: Dorothy Schneider Copley News Service

DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD

BODY:
Some state lawmakers and environmental advocates said Tuesday that the loopholes President Bush added to the Clean Air Act in 2002 have hurt the people of Illinois.

“It’s not rocket science; air pollution causes disease,” said Brian Urbaszweski of the American Lung Association.

Pollution in Illinois is linked to 1,700 deaths and 33,000 asthma attacks every year, he added.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Chicago, sponsored a bill to reverse Bush’s changes to clean air regulation in Illinois. He said his reasons were political and personal.

“I’ve got a 5-year-old daughter who’s got asthma,” he said. “Every bit of evidence out there shows that although pollutants may not cause asthma, they are certainly an important trigger.”

The American Lung Association reports asthma is the leading cause of hospitalization for children in Illinois.

Rep. Elaine Nekritz, D-Northbrook, who is sponsoring the same bill in the House, said she’s disappointed that the emissions standards have been called into question nearly 34 years after the Clean Air Act passed.

“The new rules gave polluters sole discretion to determine whether and when they are required to install the latest pollution control devices,” she said.

The Bush administration’s changes scale back the requirements for Illinois’ 22 coal-burning power plants to update their air-cleaning technology in two ways:

- Plants can now pick the highest emission level from the past 10 years at the facility - instead of the past two years - and cannot exceed that level.

- Before the federal government can order a technology upgrade, plants must do a major renovation, costing more than 20 percent of the value of the property. Before the changes, even routine maintenance would qualify the plant a technology upgrade.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan joined with 14 other states to file a lawsuit to halt Bush’s changes allowing routine maintenance. The suit is currently pending.

House Bill 6555 and Senate Bill 3147 would set Illinois clean air policy at the levels required in 2002, before the Bush administration’s changes.

But Phillip Gonet, president of the Illinois Coal Association, said the bills would not be fair to the state’s coal users.

“We think our emission restrictions should be no more stringent than what’s at the federal level,” he said.

Gonet fears the higher coal-technology costs would force many Illinois plants to switch to using natural gas, which is more expensive than coal but less costly than the technology. The burdensome costs, however, could force some plants to close or increase consumer prices.

“The bottom line is this will be detrimental to Illinois coal,” Gonet said.

Obama argued just the opposite.

“Ironically, the stronger our pollution controls, the more likely we are to use Illinois coal as opposed to Western coal,” he said.

Illinois’ sulfur-rich coal puts more pollutants into the air when burned. Only a handful of the state’s plants have invested in the “wet scrubber” technology used to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions that come from Illinois coal.

Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 5:31 pm
Obama argued just the opposite.

“Ironically, the stronger our pollution controls, the more likely we are to use Illinois coal as opposed to Western coal,” he said.—
Oh yeah, I want to see that math. Obama must be totally clueless when it comes down to the costs of those “wet scrubbers”, because it’s really serious big time money.

Maybe that’s why Midwest Generating has all those coal trains running from out West (See all the coal trains on the UP lines running into Chicago from the West carrying Western out-of-state coal).

Let’s see - maybe a small econ lesson is in order for our most current US Senator:

1. Current Operating Expenses: Western coal costs < than IL coal costs for power generation.
2. Current level of environmental regulation on coal = 1.00
3. Increased environmental regulation on coal = 1.00 x 1.xx = 1.xx (an increase in costs due to increased regulation).
4. Effects:
4(a) Western coal costs x 1.xx increased environmental costs = higher Western coal costs.
4(b) IL coal costs x 1.xx increased environmental costs = higher IL coal costs.
5. End result: Future Operating Expenses: Western coal costs < than IL coal costs.

However, there’s a wild card in all of this. If only the coal costs go up, well, why not look at other fuel alternatives that can produce relative amounts of power. Like, natural gas fired power producers.

Because wind & solar just aren’t going to come anywhere near cutting it when it comes down to producing the majority of our power needs.

If that happens, say “Goodbye” to the IL coal industry. Now, I’m sure if you’re in Obama’s shoes dealing with his new best buds in DeeCee, hey, that’s just downstate IL’s problem. But he better realize those folks down South have long, LONG memories - particularly when your vote helps to throw them out of work.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 6:33 pm
If Obama doesn’t logroll on this issue, FutureGen will go to Ohio or WV or TX. And that’ll be bad for Illinois.

Comment by Stephen Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 7:05 pm
Obama’s position is exactly what he said a year ago on the campaign trail - that he opposes Bush’s rollbacks because they HURT Illinois coal. They were crafted WITH THE INTENTION of hurting midwestern coal to benefit coal from Wyoming, home of the VP and head of the Secret Energy Task Force.

The fact of the matter is that burning IL coal happens to pump out much less toxic mercury than Wyoming coal. So, the tougher limits are on the mercury pollution that poison IL fish, the more economic sense it makes to burn IL coal, which burns cleaner. Therefore, to try to help coal from Cheney’s state, Bush proposes going soft on mercury pollution.

Unfortunately, over 80% of coal burned in IL is from out of state. Yeah for Barack for trying to clean up our air and lakes while burning MORE Illinois coal at the same time.

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 8:49 pm
It’s pretty simple math, and he gets it, you don’t. If you work within a framework of a emission trading system the Bush administration is offering for long time shirkers of the current law, one has every incentive in not investing in the technology except to meet a low standard and use relatively cleaner coal.

Using Illinois coal would require a lot more shares or a lot more expensive equipment. There is no incentive to do that. It’s very basic to any sort of system of tradeable permits.

The Clearn Skies program hurts Southern Illinois even if those in Southern Illinois are too stupid to understand the markets the claim to support don’t support them.

Poshard long made this argument. While I have some rather tiny differences with him on this issue, he was right. He argued the same thing in the CAA of 1990, but Daschle and other westerners outmaneuvered him. He argued this point throughout his race in 1998 and the environmental groups kept saying he was for dirty air. As someone who usually identifies with such groups, it was embarrassing that a good many got shot down for the right policy.

Comment by ArchPundit Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 9:33 pm
Very interesting debate here.

I remember the attacks on Poshard on air pollution in 1998. I can tell you they did not come from environmental groups, but from his opponents.

The real long-term hope for Illinois coal is in 21st century technology being applied to burning coal. The weakening of the Clean Air Act proposed by Bush, that Obama appears poised to vote against, is designed to prevent investments in those technologies, and to lock in the current practices. The same ones that have us burning primarily western coal in Illinois.

Comment by Jack Darin Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 10:09 pm
coal schmoal… maybe obama can return to the good graces of the southern illinoisan editorial board if he learns how to spin a basketball on his finger at saluki games?

Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Mar 1, 05 @ 10:26 pm
This from the same SI edit board that was too busy sucking up to the governor during his recent visit to ever say: Hey Rod, what about ol’ Red here, the disabled guy at the state park that you fired and whose wheelchair you took away. Is that your idea of not balancing the budget on the broken backs of the working man?

No, no, no. We’ve got to get baseball in Marion. Yeah, that’ll spur the economy. That’s the ticket. Golly Mr. Blagojevich, why are you so great and is there anything we can do to improve your greatness?

Obama must be shaking in his boots.

Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Mar 2, 05 @ 2:33 pm
Here’s something to think about when we’re talking about coal too…

Illinois coal has one of the highest BTU ratings around. The BTU rating is how much energy is produced when a certain amount of coal is burned. Illinois coal has a BTU that is around 3 times higher than the BTU for western coal. This means that if we want a set amount of energy, we have to burn 3 times as much western coal to get it. The advantage western coal holds over Illinois coal currently is that installing scrubbers is an expensive one-time cost, and many companies don’t have to pay it. But, in the long run they will pay either the same or less money using Illinois coal because they won’t have to buy as much. Their cost to buy coal will go down because they will buy a third of what they bought before, and also won’t have to transport it as far.

Essentially, it’s a win-win situation for the coal industry, coal consumers, and the environment, so long as they’re able to get over that one-time cost hump of the scrubber installation.

And I like the sense of Illinois pride I get when I walk out of my campus apartment and see the smokestacks from the Lakeside power station here in Springfield, which is clean-burning Illinois coal.

Comment by Drew Hibbard Thursday, Mar 3, 05 @ 12:38 am
Drew, I think this is a good point. The issue with the tradeable permits is that they do nothing to overcome the initial investment required in wet scrubbers. And, given the nature of trading and assuming a far stricter standard, only the plants with the biggest problems would have to adopt them. In such a case no economy of scale to the technology applies and it stays expensive for a transition.

In this case, Best Available Technology is probably just as efficient of a standard as a permit system.

Comment by ArchPundit Thursday, Mar 3, 05 @ 10:19 am
“But, in the long run they will pay either the same or less money using Illinois coal because they won’t have to buy as much. Their cost to buy coal will go down because they will buy a third of what they bought before, and also won’t have to transport it as far.”

If this is the case, the energy companies will figure it out pretty quickly. Of all the industries out there, the utilities have perhaps the greatest ability to amortize one-time plant investments. Look at all the nuke plants ComEd and IP built in the 70’s.

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Mar 3, 05 @ 10:31 pm