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* 12:52 pm - Staggers out…

An appointee of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich who had been under federal investigation for hiring fraud has been fired by the state’s child-welfare agency.

A spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Services says Robin Staggers’ last day as chief of staff was June 5. The DCFS spokesman wouldn’t discuss why she was dismissed.

* FutureGen in…

Federal officials announced an agreement this morning that will restart plans to build an experimental coal plant in Mattoon, Ill. Supporters hailed the news as a victory for the Illinois economy and for efforts to curb global warming.

The agreement will at least temporarily resurrect the so-called FutureGen project, which the Bush administration had discontinued in 2008, citing rising cost estimates. The plant is expected to cost more than $2.4 billion, including five or so years of operating costs, U.S. Sen. Sen. Dick Durbin said this morning. Earlier estimates had put the cost at around $1.5 billion or more.

If completed, FutureGen would be the first commercial-scale effort in the country to test carbon capture and sequestration technology–an attempt to collect the greenhouse gas emissions from coal before they enter the atmosphere, then store those gases underground.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 12:52 pm

Comments

–Today Durbin said, however, that he discussed restarting the project with Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and Emanuel pledged that there would be no “attempt to establish political pressure on Secretary Chu” and that no special consideration was given to the project because of it being in Obama’s home state.–

LOL. If that’s true, why did we vote for these guys?

That reminds me of the Super Collider sweepstakes back in the 80s. At the announcement of the winner, the Energy Secretary at the time said no political considerations were behind awarding the project to Texas.

When he said that, he was flanked by President-elect Bush I, House Speaker Jim Wright and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, chair of the Finance Committee.

I think they were all from Rhode Island.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:35 pm
Why doesn’t DCFS just come out and say why Staggers was removed? It makes it look like they’re hiding something by keeping mum.

That said, she’s had ethical questions swirling around her for some time, so why did it take so long?

Comment by Anon A. Muss Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:43 pm
So the Ministry of Plenty has declared cleancoal the green wave of the future.

Double plus good!

Comment by Leroy Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:45 pm
I’m still laughing. I’d be fascinated to hear the conversation between Durbin and Emanuel revolving around keeping political considerations out of government policy! Those two guys?

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:47 pm
Bring home the FutureGen bacon!

Comment by Das Man Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:48 pm
One could buy 1200 industrial grade wind turbines for that, and they’d be guaranteed to work (at least when the wind blows).

Or half a nuke plant.

Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 1:50 pm
What about the other 2 staff at DCFS that were on administrative leave with her?

Comment by Belle Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 2:08 pm
@ Belle - My understanding is that one left a couple years ago and the other is still there. However, the other two were not under federal investigation - Staggers was the only DCFS employee who the feds were looking at in connection with illegal hiring. The FBI illegal hiring investigation also targeted Joe Cini and Victor Roberson both of whom are no longer state employees (Roberson was fired about a month after Quinn took office).

Comment by Anon A. Muss Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 2:14 pm
Yes Six, but we dont have a lot of wind mines around the state that employe people to dig in them.

Comment by Ghost Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 3:09 pm
From the Cato Institute -

Superconducting Super Collider

A 1983 Department of Energy panel recommended the building of the world’s largest particle accelerator, and with Ronald Reagan’s approval in 1987, the Superconducting Super Collider project was launched.

Development of the Superconducting Super Collider at a site near Dallas, Texas was mired in mismanagement. All of the major subcontractors fell behind schedule and ran over budget. The department had no functioning cost-tracking system and provided little oversight for the poorly performing contractors.

At launch in 1987, the Secretary of Energy estimated that the project would cost taxpayers $4.4 billion. By 1989, the cost estimate had jumped to $5.9 billion, and by 1991 the cost estimate had jumped to $8.2 billion.

Adding to these problems, the project had received almost none of the $1.7 billion planned foreign contributions that had been budgeted. In the end, Congress determined that the SSC was consuming an enormous amount of federal funds relative to the probability that it would produce useable scientific knowledge or technology. Congress killed the SSC in late 1993, after spending about $2 billion, and after seeing the total estimated cost almost triple to $11.8 billion. But taxpayers were still on the hook for expenses related to shutting down the project of more than $700 million.

This is what FutureGen will become. So, what would you like to do with all the abandoned big box buildings after it’s killed off?

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 3:45 pm
Strange, they haven’t mentioned it at the agency at all, not even a whisper. Neither have they removed her from the org chart. But with the large reduction in budget we are facing, every little bit helps. However, even if DCFS where to fire or layoff every last DCFS state employee, it would only be 40% of the amount of the budget cut.

Comment by DCFS employee Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 10:42 pm
By budget cut I mean the DCFS Agency’s budget cut of 460 million which is but a trickle of the budget gap that the state has to fill.

Comment by DCFS employee Friday, Jun 12, 09 @ 10:46 pm
This is just another boondoggle that will never be economically viable without massive subsidy, just like ethanol, wind and solar power.

There is already a lot of effective SO2 and NOX removal technology. This CO2 “underground storage” plan is too limited in application to be very useful.

For the cost of this project, we could have built substantial nuclear fuel recycling facilities to solve the waste disposal problem.

Bad science, bad policy, bad economics. The only value here is in “pork” futures!

Comment by PalosParkBob Saturday, Jun 13, 09 @ 7:07 am