Illinois

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THREAT JAIL PRITZKER CHIC MAYOR

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'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him

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Illinois Sues Roxana Landfill Over Environmental Violations

The Illinois Attorney General's Office filed an 11-count lawsuit against the Roxana Landfill in Madison County, citing multiple violations observed between 2019 and 2023, including litter on the property, exposed waste, and air pollution. The suit seeks to halt further violations, enforce corrective measures, and impose significant fines. State legislators support the legal action, crediting it as a vital step toward accountability and environmental protection. The Telegraph

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illinois State Representative Chris Miller (R-110th District), a farmer by trade, recently claimed that climate change concerns are overblown because of the role trees play in capturing carbon dioxide.

"We're not having a climate crisis, but what we are having is a crisis, crisis of common sense. If you think about it, CO2 uh, manmade CO2 collectively adds up to one-one-hundredth of one percent of the atmosphere around the globe.If you think about the entire CO2, it's about four-one-hundredths of one percent.And there's one thing that I know is that I remember from an Earth science class, there's something called photosynthesis," Miller said, "and it's where green leafy plants actually absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, and it's a way God made it, a way to clean up the climate and to keep things in balance the way it should be."

Under ideal conditions, such as a cessation of deforestation and restoration of millions of trees, photosynthesis can aid in mitigating the warming effects of CO2, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration explained in 2019. Indeed, countless studies have definitively concluded that habitat loss and the conversion of forests into acreage to grow feed for livestock are exacerbating the climate emergency.

Touching on Miller's remarks about God, social media users pointed out that humanity is not treating Earth's biosphere responsibly or sustainably.

Lee Martin: "That's the whole point - we aren't taking care of what God made. We are poor stewards of the earth, in disobedience of his command."

JudyVöluspá:{: "He's picking small parts of science just like he picks small parts of the Bible."

Thom_777: "Republicans ...always so out of touch, non-empathy and anti-science. What happened to these people?"

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A small faction of sheriffs in the state of Illinois is pushing back against the state's ban on assault rifles, an initiative being enforced by Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker's (D) office.

According to NBC Chicago, a legal battle is brewing in the state as some believe the newly passed piece of legislation —House-Bill 5471, also referred to as the Protect Illinois Communities Act— violates Second Amendment rights.

Per the news outlet, a number of law enforcement officials in the state have weighed in with their assessments of the bill offering relatively critical opinions of it.

McHenry County, Ill. Sheriff Robb Tadelman took to social media with his concerns following the passing of the bill. “Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance with this act,” he said.

Other Illinois law enforcement officials in various counties also weighed in with similar concerns, namely Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey, Sheriff Jack Harlan in Boone County, and Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana, according to NBC Chicago.

In fact, Downey released a statement on the sheriff department's Facebook page addressing the new bill. Some Republican lawmakers have also echoed law enforcement officials' concerns.

“We will not comply with this legislation because we don’t have to,” said former Illinois State Rep and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey “Our Constitution protects us. The sponsors of this bill may have won a temporary victory today, but they will lose because they cannot get around the rights we have guaranteed in our Constitution.”

Despite the critical takes on the new law, Pritzker and his office are standing firm in support of it.

“Anybody who doesn’t comply, there are consequences for that,” Pritzker said. “You don’t get to choose which laws you comply with in the state of Illinois. The State Police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across this state. They will, in fact, do their job or they won’t be in their job.”

Per the news outlet, the governor's office also described the pushback as "'political grandstanding at its worst,' and said that sheriffs and departments that refuse to enforce the ban are 'in violation of their oath of office.'"

“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois. The General Assembly passed the bill and the governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder,” a spokesperson said. “Sheriffs have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the state, not pick and choose which laws they support and when.”

Pritzker’s spokesperson also said, “We’re confident that this law will hold up to any future legal challenges."

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In the United States federal government, U.S. Supreme Court seats are not elected positions; High Court justices are nominated by presidents and either confirmed or rejected by the U.S. Senate. But state supreme courts are another matter, and many of their justices will be chosen or retained by voters this year.

In the 2022 midterms, Politico reports, elections for state supreme court seats are being held in 30 different states — and according to Politico reporters Zach Montellaro and Shia Kapos, two of the main issues firing up those races are abortion and redistricting.

“The U.S. Supreme Court may get all the attention, but some of the most consequential decisions for the next decade could come instead from their counterparts in the states — many of whom are facing voters in the fall,” Montellaro and Kapos report in an article published on August 17. “Like many down-ballot offices, state supreme court races have often slipped out of the headlines in favor of the battles for Congress and governorships, despite how influential the elected justices are. Judicial elections often suffer serious voter dropoff from top-of-the-ticket races…. But with the nation’s highest court punting major policy decisions back to the states over the last several years — from partisan gerrymandering to abortion access — that is increasingly starting to change.”

The Politico journalists note that “30 states” in the U.S. “have or will hold state supreme court elections this year, in a combination of traditional elections or a retention vote — an up-or-down vote to decide if a judge should stay on the bench.”

“Some of the biggest state supreme court contests this year map alongside traditional battlegrounds, like Michigan and North Carolina, while others creep into redder or bluer territory,” Montellaro and Kapos observe. “For many of the biggest partisan players in the fight over state supreme courts, redistricting is still a north star for where to invest money…. Since the U.S. Supreme Court said, in 2019, that the federal judiciary had no role in policing partisan gerrymandering, state supreme courts have increasingly weighed in — often throwing out Republican-drawn maps in states like Pennsylvania and North Carolina, but also, dealing big blows to Democrats in New York.”

Montellaro and Kapos cite Michigan and Illinois as some of the states to pay especially close attention to in 2022 when it comes to state supreme court elections.

“Michigan will have one of the most pitched battles for control of the state supreme court, where liberal justices have a narrow 4-3 majority,” Montellaro and Kapos observe. “The positions are technically nonpartisan elections in November, but the candidates are affiliated with parties…. The (Michigan) Supreme Court has a significant question on abortion looming in front of it, with Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — who is also on the ballot this year — petitioning the Court directly to overturn the state’s 1930s-era law that bans most abortions, with a separate challenge also working its way through the state’s court system.”

The Politico reporters says of Illinois, “Two seats are open on the Illinois Supreme Court, which currently has a 4-3 Democratic majority, and Democrats are using the issue of abortion to rally voters in an effort to hold on to their edge…. Illinois pro-abortion rights groups are ramping up get-out-the-vote efforts because of a concern that a right-leaning court could imperil abortion rights, even though Illinois law keeps abortion legal in the state despite Roe v. Wade being overturned.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/billionaire-hedge-fund/

Series: The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

For billionaire Ken Griffin, it was well worth spending $54 million to ensure he and other rich Illinoisans wouldn’t have to pay more tax.

By the time Illinois voters streamed into voting booths on Election Day in 2020, Griffin, then Illinois’ wealthiest resident, had made sure they’d heard plenty about why they should not vote to raise taxes on him and the state’s other rich people. His tens of millions paid for an unrelenting stream of ads and flyers against an initiative on that year’s ballot, which would have allowed Illinois lawmakers to join 32 other states in setting higher tax rates for the wealthy than for everyone else.

In the end, Griffin spent about $18 for every one of the 3.1 million votes against theinitiative. After initial optimism about its prospects, the measure came up hundreds of thousands of votes short and went down to defeat.

Rarely does the public get a clear view of the payoff for wealthy Americans who put their money down to achieve a political outcome. But in this case, ProPublica’s trove of IRS data can provide crucial context for the ballot fight. For Griffin and many of his fellow ultrawealthy Illinoisans, spending even such a vast amount was well worth it when compared with what a tax hike might have cost them.

According to the data, Griffin averaged an annual income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018. That was the fourth-highest in the country, behind only the likes of Bill Gates.

Using that average income as a guideline, the new state tax increase, which aimed to raise the rate from 5% to 8% on the highest incomes, would have cost Griffin around $51 million every year in extra tax. In especially good years — in 2018, Griffin reported income of almost $2.9 billion — he might have been forced to pay more than $80 million more.

A Citadel spokesperson responding on Griffin’s behalf pointed out that, according to ProPublica’s previously published data, Griffin paid the second-highest amount of taxes of any American from 2013 to 2018. “Over the past decade,” he said in a statement, “it is almost a certainty that Ken has been the largest individual taxpayer in the State of Illinois — a state notorious for profligate spending and rampant corruption.” Griffin has said he’s not against raising taxes; he opposed the measure, he added in his statement, because “Illinois needs to put its fiscal house in order before burdening hard-working families with yet more taxes.”

The state’s current flat tax rate of 5% is far below the top rates in other large states run by Democrats like California and New York and comparable to those in some Republican-led states like Utah. Advocates for raising the rates on the wealthy in Illinois say the state needs additional revenue, pointing to its regular budget deficits and deep pension debts.

Not all Griffin’s political bets pay off. A candidate for Illinois governor he supported with tens of millions of dollars went down to defeat in June’s Republican primary. Meanwhile, even though the income tax initiative was defeated, Griffin announced last month that he was moving Citadel’s headquarters to Miami and relocating there himself.

Though no other donor to the anti-tax fight came close to matching the tens of millions that Griffin gave, others made contributions that were more than what most Illinois households earn in a year. ProPublica analyzed the tax data of nine other ultrawealthy supporters of Griffin’s anti-tax campaign. According to our estimate, this group of heirs and business owners, which includes some of the wealthiest people in Illinois, can expect to see a healthy return on their contributions and save millions in taxes over the coming years.

The math behind our estimate is simple: Wealthy Illinoisans will save about 3% of their income, because that was the size of the proposed tax increase on the wealthy. That’s essentially how Illinois’ state income taxes work for Illinois residents. With some adjustments, a state tax rate is applied to the income listed on their federal returns. ProPublica contacted all 10 of the anti-tax donors mentioned in this article and the accompanying chart. None challenged the methodology used to estimate their tax savings.

Richard Uihlein, who along with Griffin has emerged as a conservative megadonor on the national stage, pitched in $100,000 to the anti-tax campaign — for him a modest amount given his average annual income of $492 million in recent years. Through his family foundation, Uihlein has also given millions of dollars to the Illinois Policy Institute, a small-government group that fought the graduated tax plan. Uihlein’s average income would lead to about $15 million of annual tax savings from the defeat of the ballot initiative.

Sam Zell, the real estate mogul known in Chicago for putting together a leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company that preceded its bankruptcy, gave $1.1 million. Based on his recent income, he would save $1.6 million in taxes each year. A spokesperson for Zell declined to comment.

Patrick Ryan made his billions in insurance, and Northwestern University’s football stadium and basketball arena bear his family’s name, thanks to the hundreds of millions he’s given the school. He gave $1 million. His recent income suggests $2.1 million in annual tax savings.

Richard Colburn, whose billionaire family owns the electrical parts maker CED, gave $500,000 to the anti-tax campaign, which would help save him $5.5 million each year in taxes, according to our estimates. In an email message to ProPublica, Colburn said his reasons for opposing the graduated tax were simple: It would have “eaten substantially” into his investment earnings, some of which he passes on to a nonprofit foundation he manages. Like Griffin, he contended the state would not have used the money well.

“Though I enjoy living in the Chicago area, I could save immensely by moving to a lower-tax state, and therefore I ‘invested’ to limit the temptation on me to relocate,” Colburn wrote. “Another element of my ‘investment’ stems from my desire to limit the mis-spending by the State of Illinois that occurs every time Springfield has extra money.” (His full statement is here.)

Donald Wilson, founder of the trading firm DRW, gave $250,000 to the anti-tax campaign. That donation in particular looks modest when weighed against his potential tax savings: Based on Wilson’s average annual income of $114 million, the proposed tax increase would have cost him $3.5 million more every year.

Some of the contributions to the anti-tax campaign came from trusts, special legal entities often used by the wealthy to hide or protect assets, as well as to avoid the estate tax. Richard Stephenson, founder of a chain of for-profit hospitals called Cancer Treatment Centers of America, contributed $300,000 through his Celebrate Life Trust. Stephenson is a longtime Republican donor and such an enthusiast of Ayn Rand’s message of uncompromising self-interest that he was an executive producer on two movies based on the novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Uihlein, Ryan, Wilson and Stephenson also did not respond to requests for comment.

One $25,000 contribution came from the Philip M. Friedmann Family Charitable Trust. Friedmann made his fortune by selling the greeting card company he co-founded to a private equity firm.

Friedmann’s trust, unlike Stephenson’s, is a personal foundation. That means Friedmann likely received a tax deduction for donating to his own organization, which then used some of the funds to fight an increase in his taxes.

The contribution to the anti-tax campaign by Friedmann’s foundation appears to have violated federal tax law, three nonprofit tax law experts told ProPublica. Personal foundations are prohibited from spending to try to influence legislation, a category that includes contributions to a ballot initiative committee, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at Notre Dame. Organizations that break that law are required to pay a penalty of up to 25% of the expenditure in addition to attempting to retrieve the money.

Although this prohibition is spelled out on the IRS’ online guide for private foundations, “smaller family foundations don’t always know the applicable rules,” said Ellen Aprill, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Friedmann did not respond to requests for comment.

Illinois didn’t have an income tax of any kind until 1969, when a deal between GOP Gov. Richard Ogilvie and Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley resulted in a flat statewide tax of 2.5% on individuals and 4% on corporations. Some Democrats said the tax disproportionately punished low-income families, and pushed for higher rates on the wealthy. But Republicans and other critics argued for expiration dates or rate limits, warning that otherwise lawmakers would simply keep hiking and expanding income taxes. The following year, a compromise was encoded in the state’s updated constitution. It clarified that the General Assembly had the power to impose an income tax but only “at a non-graduated rate.”

As the state’s fiscal problems grew in the following decades, governors and legislators repeatedly raised the flat tax rate until it was up to 5% on individuals. In 2014, multimillionaire private equity investor Bruce Rauner, a Republican backed by Griffin, was elected governor after promising to slash taxes, and the rate was lowered to 3.75%. But as Rauner fell into a bitter standoff with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, the state went without a budget for more than two years, leaving it in an even deeper financial hole.

The General Assembly, including some Republicans, voted in 2017 to raise the income tax again, to 4.95% on individuals.

Democrat JB Pritzker, a billionaire investor whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain, launched his campaign for governor by casting himself as a wealthy man who would fight for the middle class — and for a graduated tax that was less burdensome for low-income families than the flat-rate system. Rauner vowed to stop him. Their 2018 campaigns spent more than $250 million combined, including $22.5 million that Griffin gave to Rauner, before Pritzker won that November.

With the support of a committed and rich governor, a graduated income tax suddenly seemed possible in Illinois.

“That created a bunch of new momentum,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a think tank that argued in favor of a graduated income tax. “That was enough political support to really get the grassroots groups working on it.”

Outside of a special convention, both the Illinois House and Senate must sign off on a state constitutional amendment by three-fifths majorities. Voters then need to approve it, either by a clear majority of all voters casting ballots in a general election or a three-fifths majority of those voting on the measure itself.

In 2019 the Senate and then the House each met that threshold, passing a measure that would eliminate the graduated income tax ban if voters approved an amendment. Companion legislation laid out what the new tax schedule would be: Rates would either drop or remain at 4.95% for people reporting income up to $250,000; they would climb from there, to a rate of 7.99% on individuals earning above $750,000 and couples above $1 million. The top rate was within the range of those in other Midwest states with graduated systems — higher than Missouri’s but lower than Iowa’s.

Supporters and opponents then had more than a year to make their cases.

Illinois election laws set some limits on campaign donations and spending. But the rules are riddled with loopholes, and they impose no limits on political committees formed to advocate for or against ballot initiatives like the income tax proposal.

Opponents of the graduated income tax formed at least five different campaign committees that raised nearly $63 million altogether. The best funded, by far, was the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment, which collected almost $60 million, including the $54 million from Griffin. The coalition received most of its remaining money from other billionaires and millionaires, according to state campaign donation records.

On the other side, Pritzker created the Vote Yes for Fairness committee, plowing $58 million of his own fortune to support the “fair tax” campaign. Apart from Pritzker’s donations, the committee received just one $250 contribution, records show.

Griffin also launched other offensives. In October 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported that Griffin had lambasted Pritzker as “a shameless master of personal tax avoidance” in an email to Citadel’s Chicago staff.

The bulk of Pritzker’s wealth ($3.6 billion, according to Forbes) is in trusts, some domestic and some located offshore. Pritzker has said some were set up by his grandfather. As ProPublica reported last year, it was common for 20th century patriarchs to set up trusts that passed fortunes down through the generations free of estate taxes.

Pritzker has released his personal tax returns, but has not provided detailed information about the trusts. For 2020, Pritzker’s office released returns showing $5.1 million in personal income for the governor and his wife, MK. The domestic trusts benefiting the governor also paid $16.3 million in Illinois taxes and $69.6 million in federal taxes in 2020, according to Pritzker spokesperson Natalie Edelstein.

ProPublica’s IRS data does not shed light on those trusts. When ProPublica requested further detail, Edelstein said the governor is not releasing documents concerning the trusts because he “is not the only beneficiary, so he does not have authority to release all of the information.” She said that the governor had not personally accepted any disbursements from the offshore trusts, instead giving them to charity. She did not address whether the trusts had been set up to avoid estate taxes, only saying they were “established generations ago.”

At the height of the graduated income tax campaign, advertisements for and against the initiative seemed to be everywhere in Illinois — in mailboxes, online, all over the airwaves.

“You couldn’t even watch TV — it was just one ad after another,” recalled David Merriman, a public administration professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Merriman’s research had found that Illinois received less revenue from income taxes and placed a higher tax burden on low-income taxpayers than neighboring states with graduated systems, including states led by Republicans. But, perhaps predictably, the ads largely avoided policy discussions in favor of political appeals.

“At the worst possible time, Springfield politicians are pushing a constitutional amendment that would give them new powers to make it easier to raise taxes on all Illinois taxpayers,” a narrator in one anti-tax ad declared. “And if there’s one thing we know about Springfield politicians, it’s that you can’t trust them.”

The fair-tax campaign accused the rich of trying to fool middle-class families and claimed, based on the state Senate bill that had already passed, that as many as 97% of taxpayers would pay the same or less under the governor’s plan.

But voters weren’t convinced. Federal investigations of several Chicago and state politicians were making headlines, and Merriman said the graduated tax advocates failed to persuade voters that they would benefit from the amendment. The initiative failed by a vote of 53% to 47%.

“It showed just how distrustful everyone is of the government,” he said.

The big money battle has continued in the Illinois governor’s race this year. This January, Pritzker deposited $90 million into his own reelection fund — the largest single political contribution in Illinois in decades and probably ever. Under state election law, candidates can lift donation limits in a race by funding their own campaigns.

Several of the anti-tax funders contributed large sums to Republicans aiming to unseat Pritzker this fall. Once again, Griffin led the way, spending $50 million, but his handpicked candidate lost the GOP primary last week to Darren Bailey, a right-wing state senator propelled by more than $17 million Uihlein gave to his campaign and an aligned super PAC. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association also went head-to-head with Griffin, paying for ads attacking his candidate, Richard Irvin.

Bailey received an endorsement from Donald Trump the weekend before the election and finished with about 58% of the vote. Irvin faded to third place with 15%. In his election night victory speech, Bailey ripped Pritzker as an “out-of-touch, elitist billionaire.”

“Do you feel overtaxed?” Bailey called out to his supporters. Their response: “Yeah!”

By then, Griffin had made a big announcement that meant his state tax bill would plummet.

In a letter to Citadel employees, Griffin announced that he was moving the company’s headquarters to Miami and that he himself had already moved his family to the area.

Florida does not have a personal income tax. Experts told ProPublica Griffin will still pay some personal income tax in New York and Illinois since Citadel has offices there. But his bill is sure to shrink dramatically, likely saving him tens of millions a year.

In response to ProPublica’s questions, Citadel did not address whether taxes motivated his move. Instead, in its statement the spokesperson cited crime concerns as the prime motivator: “Ken left Illinois for a simple reason: the state is devolving into anarchy. Senseless violence is now part of daily life in Chicago.”

Griffin’s letter to Citadel staff also made no mention of taxes as being a reason for the move. Instead, it rhapsodized about how Miami “embodies the American Dream — embracing the possibilities of what can be achieved by a community working to build a future together.”

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/from-bitcoin-mining-to-atms-illinois-is-positioning-itself-as-a-center-for-the-booming-cryptocurrency-industry/

https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/illinois-supreme-court/

kos no maps

Five years ago, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 along party lines to block a Republican-backed effort to place a redistricting initiative on the ballot that would have, counterintuitively, undermined the cause of fair representation in the Prairie State. But little-noticed elections taking place next year could hand Republicans a majority on the court for the first time in decades that would allow them to greenlight a similar effort. Such a move would open the door to distorted maps under the guise of promoting fairness—and could even allow Republicans to seize control of the legislature despite the state's deep blue lean.

Illinois is one of just a handful of states where Democrats will have full control over the redistricting process following the 2020 census, just as they did a decade earlier. However, thanks in large part to a decades-long history of racist redlining and white flight segregation in Chicago that has left voters of color heavily concentrated in urban areas, Democrats face a "geography penalty" that would leave them at a disadvantage even if the state utilized ostensibly nonpartisan maps.

There's no question that the districts Democrats drew 10 years ago were gerrymandered—lawmakers didn't try to hide their intent. But because of this geography bias, these gerrymanders did not in fact lock in a Democratic advantage in excess of the party's popular support.

One simple way to test this is to compare the political performance of the median district with that of the state as a whole; in Illinois, the median in the state House was three points to the right of the state overall in 2016, while for the Senate it was identical and for Congress, it was just one point to the left. (In neighboring Wisconsin, by contrast, the median districts in GOP-drawn maps were nine to 12 points redder than the state.)

Partisan gerrymandering is by no means the only way to counteract a geography penalty. An independent commission could, in particular, be instructed to consider the fairness of partisan outcomes when drawing new maps. But if Republicans take control of the Illinois Supreme Court, they could let conservative activists deploy a ballot initiative that omits such a requirement and even exacerbates the GOP's geography advantage by prioritizing "compact" districts.

Such an effort could even lock in minority rule in Illinois. Democrats, however, have the opportunity to prevent this scenario by reforming the way state Supreme Court justices are elected, ensuring greater fairness for both the court itself and, by extension, the redistricting process overall.

Illinois is one of just four states, along with Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi, that elects Supreme Court justices by districts rather than statewide. Unlike with legislative districts, however, federal courts do not require judicial districts to have equal population—the thinking being that judges aren't representative officials.

That doesn't mean they're fair, though, particularly since Illinois' districts haven't been redrawn for over half a century. As a result, they've become so badly disproportional that the largest of the single-member districts, the 2nd, is home to more people than the two smallest—the 4th and 5th—combined, as shown in the map below (see here for a larger version). Unsurprisingly, this distortion has benefited more rural areas in the southern part of the state at the expense of voters in the Democratic-leaning Chicago suburbs.

[map]

thanks to this district-level distortion, Republicans could take control of the Supreme Court in next year's elections, even though Illinois is a solidly blue state that voted 57-40 for Joe Biden last year. Four seats on the court are up in 2022, and both the 2nd and 3rd Districts could host competitive elections. (Incumbent justices—one Democrat and one Republican—should be heavily favored in the 1st and 4th Districts, respectively.)

This means that if a recently appointed Republican justice holds his seat in the 2nd, and if the GOP can flip a Democratic open seat in the 3rd, they'll transform the court's current 4-3 Democratic majority into a 4-3 Republican advantage. And that advantage would last for a full decade, because justice serve 10-year terms, and the only other Republican isn't up for reelection until 2030 and holds a solidly red seat anyway.

Normally those elections are what's known as "retention" elections—that is, voters simply say whether they want to keep an incumbent in office, yea or nay. To keep their job, a judge must earn 60% of the vote, though that's always been a foregone conclusion.

That was, until last year, when Democratic Justice Thomas Kilbride in the conservative-leaning (and underpopulated) 3rd District failed to win the supermajority he neededto earn another term. That made Kilbride the first Supreme Court justice since retention elections were adopted in 1964 to lose such an election.

It also set up a traditional partisan election next year in his district, which voted for Donald Trump 51-47. Kilbride's replacement, Democratic Justice Robert Carter, isn't seeking a full term, creating an open seat that Republicans have a strong chance to pick up. Meanwhile, the neighboring 2nd District, which backed Joe Biden by 55-43, will also hold a partisan election because appointed Republican Justice Michael Burke is seeking his first full term. If next year resembles a traditional midterm that disfavors the party in control of the White House, Burke could win despite the district's lean.

Together, these two districts will determine who controls the court, and if Republicans take a majority, they could authorize the very sort of ballot initiative the court rejected in 2016—one that could penalize Democrats and voters of color based solely on where they live, due to a legacy of racism of which they're the victims.

Some top Republicans appear to already be taking notice of how high the stakes are. Politico recently reported that GOP Rep. Darin LaHood could be interested in running for the critical 3rd District next year, which would given his party a much more prominent candidate than judicial races typically attract. (In an ironic twist, Democrats themselves could wind up giving LaHood more motivation to run if they try to make his congressional district bluer or combine him with another Republican.)

Should Republicans get their way and succeed in revamping the redistricting process, it's easy to illustrate just how damaging districts that prioritize compactness and other nonpartisan criteria while ignoring fairness could be. The map below (see here for a larger version) is a hypothetical example of just such an approach.

[map]

while these seemingly "clean" lines might look pleasing to the naked eye, the patterns they hold are troubling. Daily Kos Elections has calculated key demographic and election result statistics for these districts, which show that during the prior decade, no fewer than four different Democratic candidates for statewide office won their races but lost a majority of districts under this map—an outcome directly at odds with the fundamental notion in a two-party system that the party that wins the most votes should also win the most seats.

Sen. Dick Durbin's successful reelection in 2014 best showcases this distortion: Despite his wide 54-43 margin, he would have carried only eight districts while his Republican opponent would have won 10. In fact, Durbin would have lost the median district in this scenario 50-46, putting it almost 15 points to the right of his statewide win.

With a headwind like that, Democratic candidates for the House would have been hard-pressed, and Republicans could have wound up controlling a majority of the delegation. The same thing would be eminently possible under a future map like this one (albeit with 17 districts, since Illinois is losing one seat due to reapportionment), and not just for Congress but for the legislature as well.

But Democratic lawmakers can go a long way toward ensuring fairer congressional and legislative maps if they simply redraw the long-neglected judicial map—something they are entirely empowered to do. And there's no need to gerrymander the lines: A nonpartisan approach that simply equalizes populations across districts would improve matters greatly.

The map below (see here for a larger version) features one such proposal. It converts the 3rd District from a hodgepodge of disparate communities that sprawls across the state into a more cohesive district concentrated in the Chicago suburbs. Not only would its population be far closer to the ideal, this revised district would have favored Biden by a 54-44 margin rather than backing Trump.

[map]

this new 3rd District would reduce the chance that Republicans could gain a majority on the bench, but even this map would still give the GOP a large advantage when looking at the median seat—just not as gargantuan as under the current disproportional map. For instance, in the 2014 Senate election, which Democrat Dick Durbin won 53-43, Republicans would nonetheless have won a majority of Supreme Court seats.

Consequently, more extensive long-term solutions are needed that go beyond merely redrawing these court districts. The wisest move would be to end judicial elections entirely in favor of a more merit-based appointment method like those that other states have created to insulate judges from the pressures of partisan politics. That, however, would require a constitutional amendment that involves a three-fifths vote in both legislative chambers followed by a statewide referendum, whereas simply redrawing the districts to equalize their populations would go through the ordinary legislative process.

By the same token, Illinois Democrats could also put in place an independent redistricting commission with a mandate to produce congressional and legislative maps that ensure fair outcomes from a partisan perspective, short-circuiting any conservative attempt to pass a reform-in-name-only at the ballot box. The political hurdles to implement such an overhaul would be immense, however. Drafting a new judicial map would be far easier—but the window to do so won't remain open for long.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

For Utilities, the Best of Both Worlds

The Illinois and Ohio scandals are tied to the ways utility companies have responded to the competition brought on by electricity deregulation. Both states are among the 15 or so that implemented deregulation laws in the late 1990s and early 2000s, leading to systems today in which power plants must compete on an open market.

At one time, nuclear and coal-fired power plants were strong competitors on that market, but now they are struggling because of the low costs to operate plants that run on natural gas, along with the plunging costs of wind and solar power.

Rather than close plants that are not profitable or barely profitable, plant owners have chosen to seek government subsidies.

Illinois passed the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016, one of the measures cited in the U.S. attorney's recent filing as being tainted by corruption. The law provided subsidies for two nuclear power plants and included a major expansion of the state's support for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The nuclear plants are owned by Exelon, which is ComEd's parent company.

The law's supporters argued that the plants were a vital source of carbon-free power and that they were important for jobs and the economy.

Other states have enacted their own laws or regulatory actions in recent years that include nuclear subsidies as part of a package or a larger agenda that also expanded use of renewable energy. They include Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.

In Ohio, it was a different story, with elected officials hostile to renewable energy. House Bill 6, passed in 2019, gave more than a billion dollars to two nuclear power plants owned by a company with ties to FirstEnergy. It also provided subsidies for two coal-fired power plants owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp., and canceled the requirements of a 2008 law that had required utilities to invest in renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Environmental groups that had supported the 2016 Illinois law opposed the 2019 one in Ohio. But the laws are alike in that they started as nuclear bailouts and then sponsors added whatever provisions they needed to get them passed.

Both laws subvert the market, which is unfair to competing owners of power plants, said Michael Haugh, an energy policy consultant who has done work for the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, the state's utility consumer advocate, and for the R Street Institute, a think tank that advocates for open markets and limited government.

The result is that utilities have a system in which they can earn substantial profits in situations where they are well-equipped to compete, and can get government protection to guarantee profits when they are ill-equipped to compete.

"They found the way to walk the line in-between," Haugh said, which, he added, is "the best of both worlds" for the companies.

Favors and Inducements

Documents in the Illinois case describe years of favors and other inducements that ComEd provided to a "Public Official A." Although the documents do not name the official, they refer to the person as speaker of the Illinois House during the period of the alleged crimes. That was Mike Madigan, a Democrat, who remains speaker.

ComEd agreed to pay a fine of $200 million and cooperate with the investigation, while Madigan has not been charged. A spokeswoman for Madigan said he "never made a legislative decision with improper motives and has engaged in no wrongdoing here."

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, said at a public appearance last week that he is "furious with what is being reported" and that Madigan has a lot that he needs to answer for, to authorities and voters.

The agreement between prosecutors and ComEd was the largest development so far in an investigation that Chicago media have been reporting on since last summer, based on reports of authorities raiding officials' homes and offices.

Threats and Payoffs

In contrast to the slow burn of the Illinois probe, the one in Ohio remained a secret until authorities made arrests in the early hours of July 21.

The Ohio arrests included not only Householder, the speaker of the House, but also four of his associates who were part of what prosecutors said was the largest bribery scheme in Ohio history.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio issued an affidavit with much more detail than the documents in Illinois, describing how "Company A" provided nearly all of more than $60 million that went to a dark money group controlled by Householder, which he then used to help the company, help his political career, and cover a variety of personal expenses. Company A is FirstEnergy.

The affidavit tells the story of a plan that took years to unfold, starting in 2016 when a FirstEnergy subsidiary, FirstEnergy Solutions, said that its two Ohio nuclear plants were losing money and would need to close unless they got help from the government.

That same year, Householder was planning a return to the Ohio House, running for a seat in the body where he had served from 1997 to 2004, including a previous stint as speaker.

Householder narrowly won election by his colleagues as House speaker in 2019 and soon released the first draft of a nuclear bailout measure that he said was a high priority.

He rammed the bill through in the House and Senate, using threats and promises to cajole his colleagues to support the measure and over the objections of a broad range of business and environmental groups.Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed the bill.

But the fight didn't end when the bill became law. Opponents of the bill announced that they would gather signatures for a referendum to give voters a chance to repeal the law. The dark money group and affiliated groups responded with an aggressive campaign to prevent the opponents from getting the signatures they needed.

This included buying up contracts of national signature gathering firms, essentially paying them to not work in Ohio. It meant getting contact information for individual signature gatherers and sending them text messages offering $2,500 and a plane ticket to quit their jobs. It also meant hiring "blockers," paid operatives who followed signature-gatherers and tried to persuade the public not to sign.

Meanwhile, Householder's allies wanted inside information from the referendum campaign, so they paid $15,000 to get an employee of the campaign to divulge secrets, and threatened to burn his house down if he revealed the existence of the payoff. The threat was phrased as if it were a joke, but the threat was clear, the employee told prosecutors.

The push for a ballot measure ended in failure, with organizers saying they were unable to get enough signatures because of all the dirty tricks.

While many of the details in the affidavit were shocking—like Householder using money from the dark money group to pay for repairs to his second home in Florida—it was well-known that Householder was extremely close to FirstEnergy. For example, Ohio media had reported that the company had hosted Householder and his son on the company's jet to attend President Donald Trump's inauguration.

"It was no secret that this was the quid pro quo for FirstEnergy helping Householder get the speakership," said Janine Migden-Ostrander, a principal at the Regulatory Assistance Project who was head of the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel from 2004 to 2011.

What was a secret was that Householder controlled the dark money groups and the extent to which FirstEnergy was financing the groups, she said.

DeWine said on Thursday that the law should be repealed and replaced in light of the evidence of corruption.

Meanwhile, FirstEnergy has said it did nothing wrong.

"This is a serious and disturbing situation," said Chuck Jones, FirstEnergy's CEO, in a conference call with analysts on Friday. "Ethical behavior and upholding the highest standards of conduct are foundational values for the entire FirstEnergy family and me personally."

The company has said little about the specifics of the allegations. Householder has not commented on the charges since his arrest and his office did not respond to a request for comment.

Both the Illinois and Ohio investigations are ongoing.

A Wake-Up Call?

Analysts and advocates are hopeful that the scandals will serve as a wakeup call for the public about the deep flaws in the ways utilities influence the political system.

Hill, the Ohio State economist, said he hopes the scandals lead to fair competition and lower costs for consumers. He is wary of the possibility that environmental groups may respond by saying that Ohio should provide large subsidies for renewable energy, which he thinks would be taking the wrong lesson from what has happened.

"Green energy wins in competitive markets," he said, citing the low prices of wind and solar power.

Another part of learning from the scandals is to recognize that some of the harmful activity is legal and shouldn't be, like utilities' ability to influence policy through untraceable donations to dark money groups, said Pomerantz of the Energy and Policy Institute.

"The line between what is legal corruption and illegal corruption in this country is incredibly fuzzy and porous," he said.

PUBLISHED UNDER:

Illinois Is Poised to Crack Down on Hazardous Coal Ash Waste to Protect Health and Rivers

BY: NINA PULLANO

Lawmakers targeted coal ash after testing showed Illinois was the No. 1 state for the most coal-fired power plants leaching unsafe levels of contaminants like arsenic into the groundwater.

Illinois is poised to become the latest state to crack down on power plants' coal ash waste, a hazardous byproduct of coal burning and source of groundwater contamination.

The state has more coal ash ponds leaching unsafe levels of contaminants into groundwater than any other state in the nation, a recent analysis of federally mandated water testing showed. That pollution can pose health risks for humans: Coal ash can contain chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic, mercury and lead, that have been linked to cancer, heart disease, reproductive issues and brain damage in children.

Lawmakers passed legislation this week that, once signed by new Democratic Gov.J.B.Pritzker, would amend the Illinois Environmental Protection Act to set stricter requirements for coal ash cleanup and to mandate public comment periods prior to closing coal ash sites. It also would give the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency funding to run cleanup programs through permit fees.

...

Illinois: Illinois’ delegation includes seven Dirty Air Villains:Reps. Peter Roskam (R-IL6), Joe

Walsh (R-IL8) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL11) (each of whose districts overlap with the 18th

dirtiest MSA in the US for soot pollution) and Randall Hultgren (R-IL14), Donald Manzullo (RIL16),

Robert Schilling (R-IL17) and John Shimkus (R-IL19). Illinois also has five Clean Air

Heroes: Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL4), Michael Quigley D-

(IL5), Bobby Rush (D-IL1) and Janice Schakowsky (D-IL9).

The Clean Energy Jobs Act that was introduced Thursday would move Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 and make the state a national leader in clean energy and climate action.

Clean Energy

The bill (SB2132) would rapidly ramp up renewable energy in Illinois towards the 100 percent target by 2050, starting with a target of generating 45 percent of our electricity from renewable sources — and none from fossil fuels — by 2030. That rapid expansion of clean energy would place Illinois at the forefront of job growth, investments, customer savings and health benefits from renewable energy.

The bill would also grow the Illinois Solar for All Program by as much as 500 percent, expand cost-saving energy efficiency programs, and help us plan our electric grid in ways that avoid unnecessary costs and take advantage of increasingly cheap renewable energy.

Clean Transportation

Putting more renewables on the electric grid also makes it easier to clean up our transportation sector, which is now the largest source of carbon pollution in Illinois. Although electric vehiclesalreadypollute less than gasoline-powered vehicles, as the electricity we use to charge those vehicles gets cleaner, we can reduce pollution even more. At the same time, electric vehiclespaired with smart charging technologies can help our electric grid run more efficiently. The Clean Energy Jobs Act aims to take advantage of these opportunities while removing the equivalent of one million gasoline-powered vehicles off the road.

New incentives and infrastructure to support electric vehicles would help spur this process, including support for "light duty" electric vehicles like cars and trucks, which can save drivers money and create 70 percent less pollution than similar gas-powered vehicles. It would also include incentives to transition towards electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which is critical in part because many of today's heavy-duty vehicles run on diesel and cause serious health problems for people in communities with heavy truck traffic. The bill also pairs electric vehicle incentives with smart charging programs to ensure that electric vehicles can charge at "off-peak" hours (such as late at night) when electricity is relatively cheap, plentiful and clean. Finally: in addition to expanding electric vehicles, Illinois should expand non-motorized transportation options like walking, biking and mass transit, which could be included in a capital bill.

Jobs and Equity

The transition to a clean energy economy promises benefits to our health (as we saw in 2016), our climate and our pocketbooks. It also creates jobs: Illinois is already home to nearly 120,000 clean energy jobs. Statewide, about one in every 50 workers is in the clean energy sector. In rural Illinois, clean energy already employs twice as many people as fossil fuels, and those jobs are growing at 5 percent a year even as the total number of jobs in rural areas has declined. The massive expansion of renewable energy envisioned in this bill would grow those impressive numbers even further.

But the benefits of our energy transition must be equitably distributed, and the jobs it creates must be good-paying and accessible. The transition must prioritize economic opportunity for people of color, people who live in environmental justice communities, and workers impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act centers these priorities through Clean Energy Empowerment Zones, which allocate economic development resources to communities impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels, and the creation of Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs. These hubs are workforce development pipelines that begin with recruitment conducted in partnership with community groups, unions and others, and which prioritize recruiting people of color, people from marginalized communities, and displaced fossil fuel workers. They include training programs with stipends to help trainees meet living expenses, transportation, child care, and other needs while they develop their skills. Renewable energy developers will be incentivized to hire diverse workers, including graduates of these training programs.

What's Next for the Clean Energy Jobs Act

The Clean Energy Jobs Act was developed with the input of people all over Illinois, in nearly 70 public discussions across rural, urban and suburban communities, from Chicago to Carbondale, with participants of all ages and racial backgrounds.

With a newly-elected governor who supports 100 percent renewable energy, recent national polls showing that 85 percent of registered voters want to move their states entirely to renewable energy by 2050, and the ambitious Clean Energy Jobs Act gathering sponsors in the legislature, Illinois is poised to be a model for clean energy leadership — not just in the Midwest, but in the world.

Beyond the numbers and the policy details, that would mean cleaner air and water, more jobs, healthier people and a livable world for our kids.

Michigan: Challenging a Pipeline – and Trump

The new dynamic was on display on Jan. 2, when newly elected Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer started a legal fight against Enbridge Line 5, an aging fossil fuel pipeline that passes under the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac.

She sent a letter to state Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking a legal opinion that could help to undo a plan to replace the pipeline. Nessel is also brand new to the job, and, like Whitmer, very different from her Republican predecessor.

...

Wisconsin: Changing the Tone After Walker

At a renewable energy conference last week, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers also spoke about the need to address climate change.

"We shouldn't have to choose between investing in new industries and protecting our natural resources like our land, rivers and waters," Evers said.

His predecessor, Republican Scott Walker, was criticized during his tenure for ignoring climate change and for downplaying humans' role in causing it.

Evers, however, is limited in how much he can do. The Democrat faces a legislature controlled by Republicans and the added constraint of a widely derided bill Walker signed after losing reelection that reduces the power of the governor's office in several ways.

Illinois: Joining the U.S. Climate Alliance

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, has replaced Republican Bruce Rauner, who talked little about climate change and downplayed its effects while also supporting expanding the oil and gas industry in the state.

"There was both the perception and the reality that (Walker and Rauner) were moving their states backwards when it came to core environmental policies and values that were broadly supported by people of the state," said Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

In his inaugural address, Pritzker made a point to say: "I believe in science."

On Wednesday, Pritzker officially signed onto the U.S. Climate Alliance, becoming the 18th governor to join the group and commit the state to the principles of the Paris climate agreement. His executive order also directed the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to monitor the Trump administration's environmental proposals and identify ways to protect Illinois residents from environmental harm.

"While the president is intent on taking us backwards, I will work hard every day to move our state forward," Pritzker said. "We know that climate change is real. We know it's a threat. And we know we must act."

...

https://www.propublica.org/article/politic-il-insider-additional-gang-databases-illinois-cook-county

ej org dynergy coal ash illinois

"With the Trump and Rauner administrations rolling back enforcement of national and state environmental laws, advocates are urging a federal court to step in and order Dynegy to take more aggressive action. Environmental groups fear that steady erosion of the riverbank could trigger a catastrophic spill, similar to disasters at coal plants in Tennessee and North Carolina where ash impoundments ruptured and caused millions of dollars in damage.

'Dynegy left a toxic mess on the banks of one of Illinois' most beautiful rivers and has done nothing to stop the dangerous, illegal pollution from fouling waters enjoyed by countless families who kayak, tube, canoe and even swim in the river,' said Jenny Cassel, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of the nonprofit groups behind a lawsuit filed Wednesday that accuses Dynegy of violating the federal Clean Water Act."

https://www.ecowatch.com/coal-ash-river-illinois-2573918063.html

http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/jeffbiggers/climate-reckoning-my-own-private-coal-story

...

In that same time period, my kids—the 9th generation of our family to be born in Illinois—and I have watched coal barges ease down the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in a fivefold increase in coal exports, en route to CO2-spewing coal-fired plants abroad. The wake-up call: Illinois has experienced record drought and flooding, as climate scientists determined our planet had reached the alarming 400 parts-per-million milestone of CO2 emissions for the first time in millions of years.

Coal miners remain the canaries in the coal mine: Black lung disease among coal miners, an issue dear to my heart and to anyone who has watched their loved ones and friends suffer needlessly, is at record levels in 2014.

And communities not far from my beloved Eagle Creek, including members of my own displaced family, have once again found themselves on the front lines of mining destruction. As part of an “all-of-the’above” energy policy touted by President Barack Obama and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn—a Sierra Club-supported Democrat who once led anti-strip-mining campaigns and swept into office on promises of regulatory reform—the heartland has undergone a series of mind-boggling machinations in favor of coal mining and hydraulic fracking....

hymn mixed news on frack:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Stricter requirements for disclosing the use of chemicals are part of new proposed rules issued by the state Friday as part of the process of regulating fracking, the high-volume oil and gas drilling method that proponents hope will bring a surge of jobs to Illinois.

The highly anticipated rules, released by the state Department of Natural Resources, come after months of complaints about delays from industry officials anxious to begin hydraulic fracturing in what they say are southern Illinois' rich deposits of natural gas. The state was hailed last year for legislation seen as a model of compromise on how to regulate the drilling practice, but that cooperation broke down when draft rules were criticized by both industry and environmental activists.

State officials expressed confidence that the new rules would address all the concerns raised in 30,000 comments they received in response to those initial rules. DNR director Marc Miller said his staff had done "a thorough and thoughtful job" in crafting a balanced, 150-page report delivered to an administrative oversight committee tasked with reviewing them over the next 45 days before they can take effect.

But both environmentalists and industry officials also were poring over the report Friday, and some indicated that the battle over the regulations may not be over. Mark Denzler, chief operating officer of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, said hopeful drillers were not happy with the requirement for more detailed disclosure of specific chemicals, which he said could threaten "trade secret protections."

"From a cursory review, there are concerns that the new rules exceed the scope of the legislation," Denzler said.

The department also clarified rules to ensure that wastewater would not be stored in open pits for more than a week at a time, which environmentalists had said would lead to contamination. And it stipulated that public hearings for fracking permits should not be held further than 30 miles from where a well site would be located.

Some environmentalists offered tepid praise for the department's attention to their concerns, while saying they would be pouring over the new rules over the next few days....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/29/fracking-rules_n_5737812.html

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois is buying more renewable energy than any other state in the nation, which has reduced pollution by the equivalent of removing a million cars from the road over the past few years, according to a report released Friday by national and state environmental groups.

A 2009 state law allowed communities to buy their own electricity, rather than relying on a central purchasing agency. Since then, more than 600 Illinois cities and towns have adopted aggregation, which allows them to bundle residential and small business customers to buy cheaper electricity in bulk from smaller suppliers.

Of those, 91 are providing 100 percent renewable energy, either by buying it directly or buying credits that help fund renewable energy development, the report says.

Five other states — California, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island — also allow communities to buy electricity, but none comes close to matching the renewable energy Illinois is purchasing, said Keya Chatterjee, senior director for renewable energy and footprint outreach at the World Wildlife Fund.

"It is huge what is already being done," in Illinois, Chatterjee said. "This is a story about local choice, and (Illinois) is choosing renewables in town after town after town."

The central Illinois city of Normal began aggregation about 1½ years ago, allowing officials to buy electricity at lower rates than they would have gotten otherwise, said Mayor Chris Koos.

He said aggregation also "meshed with broader community sustainability goals," which include trying to improve the environment. Normal buys renewable energy credits, which helps fund development of power sources such as wind and solar....huffpo

In this age of climate destabilization, including record bouts of drought, flooding and severe storms in the heartland, it seems almost unreal that the Democrat-controlled state of Illinois is leading the charge for a fracking and coal mining rush.

And this week, as central and southern Illinois folks pick up the pieces from a horrific series of tornadoes, environmentalists and citizens groups are scurrying to respond to the unmitigated disaster of the state's newly released fracking rules.

"Behind the story you hear is the one I wish I could make you hear," my dear friend Dorothy Allison wrote in her book, Two or Three Things I Know For Sure.

While the news headlines now tell us that "environmentalists feel betrayed by proposed fracking rules," the truth is -- as one southern Illinois resident told me -- the "criticisms are peanuts compared to what environmentalists gave away to industry in the negotiations that led to the statute."

Two or three things we know for sure: Southern Illinoisans have a long, long, long history of betrayal over environmental and community rights issues. Still deeply entrenched in poverty and unemployment, southern Illinois has been plundered for two centuries by the logging industry for its forests, plundered by the coal industry for its coal reserves, and is now on pace to be plundered for its oil and gas reserves (after a similar oil rush in the 1940s).

"The four organizations who betrayed Southern Illinoisans on the fracking bill -- Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Law & Policy Center, Faith in Place -- are now whining that the legislation which they so loved last Spring has putrefied by Winter," said Sam Stearns, a former oil rig worker, coal miner and long-time Shawnee National Forest activist in southern Illinois. "They might as well save their hand-wringing histrionics. We here in Southern Illinois have seen this show before."

Stearns added a quick history lesson:

It was the "professional" environmental organizations back in the 1970s who signed on to a watered down Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). SMCRA paved the way for the abomination of mountaintop removal mining. Here in Southern Illinois in the 1980s it was the Sierra Club which signed an agreement with the U. S. Forest Service allowing for logging on tens of thousands of acres of our Shawnee National Forest. This logging has been stayed for a couple of decades now thanks to the efforts of grassroots environmental activists; but in the interim this same Sierra Club has acquiesced to other environmental degradation on the Shawnee, including commercial development of Wilderness areas and the application of synthetic chemicals in designated Natural Areas on the Shawnee.

And now, suddenly "betrayed" by Gov. Pat Quinn's Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), Chicago-based environmentalists like NRDC's Ann Alexander think the fracking regulations just "need fixing," to stem any concern about potential water contamination, earthquakes, air pollution, well abandonment and fracking.

Here are two or three more things we know for sure -- at least from environmentalists and citizens groups that live in the fracking-targeted region of southern Illinois, unlike those quoted in the various news articles:

1) Over the Next 40 Days, We Need to Bury the IDNR in Comments About the Loophole-Riddled Fracking Rule -- And Jump Start the Fracking Moratorium Movement: As Illinois native and renowned scientist Sandra Steingraber has admonished -- and done well in New York -- the only way to keep Illinois from fast-tracking the incredibly flawed rules into law is to bury the understaffed IDNR officials during the public comment period, who are required to respond....

http://www.alternet.org/print/speakeasy/jeffbiggers/7-things-you-need-know-about-illinoiss-new-fracking-rules

YES! Magazine [1] / By Jeff Biggers [2]

Pro-Coal Kids' Pages Pulled from Government Site as Public Pressure Increases

October 18, 2013 |

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity has removed coal-related educational sections from its website, less than two weeks after the launch of a grassroots campaign demanding that the pages be taken down.

The website sections were supposed to educate children about energy, but had been widely denounced [3] because they focused on misleading pro-coal messages.

It wasn't just environmentalists who objected to the way Illinois was talking about coal to kids. Last month, a state-commissioned evaluation of the Illinois coal education program determined [4] that the curriculum, including the website, was "biased towards a positive image of coal."

As pressure increased on the department to take action, staff members initially claimed that they were too broke to fix the problem [5]. Then the pages disappeared from the site on Monday. Earlier screen shots show sections called "Education" and "Kid's Site," neither of which was visible when YES! checked the DCEO site [this week].

"This is a victory for our children and schools," said Sam Stearns, a former coal miner who helped to organize for the site to be changed, "and a first step toward refashioning an energy education program that tells the truth about the health and environmental impacts of coal mining and burning."

In the CREDO petition [6] Stearns launched, along with former country music singer and environmentalist Mark Donham, the two criticized the website's downplay of environmental impacts and safety issues among miners, especially black lung disease.

They also singled out the use of a cartoon figure that told children that land reclamation efforts after strip-mining return the land "the way it was or better than before mining."

Along with CREDO, Stearns was joined by national children's groups such as Rethinking Schools, the Zinn Education Project, and the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which led a successful campaign two years ago to expose the "United States of Energy [7]," a curriculum published by Scholastic but bankrolled by the American Coal Foundation.

"It's not surprising that a desperate industry would try and win children's hearts and minds," said Josh Golin, the campaign's associate director. "But it's beyond disappointing that state education officials would help dirty coal with this dirty mission."

Bill Bigelow, curriculum editor at Rethinking Schools magazine and co-director of the Zinn Education Project, found the outcome encouraging.

"They can only get away with this because people haven't demanded that it stop," he said. "Now, they have."

See more stories tagged with:

education [8],

environment [9],

coal [10],

rethinking schools [11],

illinois [12],

Amrican Coal Foundation [13]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/education/pro-coal-kids-pages-pulled-government-site-public-pressure-increases

Links:

[1] http://www.yesmagazine.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jeff-biggers

[3] http://www.salon.com/2013/09/28/time_to_come_clean_about_coal_quinn_partner/

[4] http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/09/04/pro-coal-school-curriculum-on-the-rocks-in-illinois/

[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/when-will-illinois-stop-p_b_3833998.html

[6] http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/gov-quinn-stop-lying-to-kids-about-coal

[7] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/12/education/12coal.html

[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/education-0

[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/environment-0

[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coal

[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/rethinking-schools

[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/illinois-0

[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/amrican-coal-foundation

[14] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

Posted by Jeff Biggers [1] at 10:51 am

May 1, 2013

Illinois Ranks As Worst Rogue Coal State: Strip Mine Permit To Serial Violator Stuns Residents

Whether she runs for governor or not, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan would need nine lives to bring the state's notoriously broken regulatory system into compliance with the nation's most reckless coal industry.

With state coal production soaring [2]against national trends, Illinois cemented its reputation as the worst rogue state for coal operations last Friday, when the rubber-stamping operations of the state's EPA issued a pollutant discharge permit [3] to a company already cited by the state forover 600 toxic discharge violations [4] at its central Illinois non-union strip mine.

Translation: Imagine the Department of Motor Vehicles renewing the driver's license of a toxic-laden truck driver with 600 DUI's.

Welcome to Illinois--where the brand new Prairie State coal-fired plant is facing "potential fraud [5]" investigations for rocket increases [6] in electricity rates; where the second highest number of contaminated coal ash dump sites [7] in the country abound; where a mind-boggling high hazard coal slurry dam [8] continues to rise in sight of a farm town [9]'s nursing home and day care center; where Illinois taxpayers underwrite a huge slush fund for coal marketing, including a shameless "coal education curriculum" [10] for students that blatantly covers up the facts on the state's deadly coal industry; where even the liberal US Sen. Dick Durbin fights for the pork of "clean coal" [11] as the main utility company backs out [12] of the FutureGen boondoggle.

Even with black lung disease [13] for coal miners spiking, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources was also found in violation [14] of state law's for failing to hire enough mine safety inspectors.

It's so pathetic in Illinois that even bankrupt energy companies are granted two-year extensions on their deadly emissions [15] clean up requirements.

It's so pathetic in Illinois that there's not even a coal severance tax [16], or collection of sales tax for out-of-state transactions--a huge detail when record coal exports now drive the market.

It's so pathetic in Illinois that we don't even celebrate Coal Miners Day [17]--just the coal barons.

And last Friday's notice [18] by the Illinois EPA, sent in an email after working hours, on the granting of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for Springfield Coal's strip mine operation near the township of Industry might be the most unabashed denial of facts and community input in recent memory.

"The fact that this mine, with hundreds of water violations has been allowed to function these past 5 years without even having their permit approved until after the fact is totally appalling," said long-time area resident Kimberly Sedgwick, who has spent years begging state agencies and organizations to intervene in the violation-ridden mine. "If companies are allowed to proceed without having permits prior, then what sort of atrocities are actually taking place? Unless I am missing something here, This is a complete mockery of our state agency and our Illinois system. It points towards corruption if you ask me. This is totally unacceptable!"

Along with being a dumping ground of toxic coal ash, the Industry mine will continue to discharge into Grindstone Creek, a historic watershed that served the first mills in the region, and flows into Camp Creek, a major site for historic Native American occupation, and then into the Lamoine River.

Call it a chronicle of a rigged permit system foretold.

I'll never forget a public hearing on the Industry mine held in Macomb, Illinois, on April 12, 2011, packed to the gills by locals against the strip mine, and listening to Illinois EPA official Larry Crislip inform a concerned citizen that the IEPA had never denied a coal mining NPDES permit. Ever. No matter how bad of an outlaw mining operation.

From the hearing transcripts:

MR. MOOREHOUSE: Okay. In the past the IEPA has refused -- has the EPA in the past refused to issue a permit to a serial violator to a coal surface mine?

MR. CRISLIP: To my recollection, I do not recall denying a permit. We work those issues out.

According to I-EPA spokesperson Dean Studer, Crislip was not available to explain how Illinois bureaucrats "work those issues out" this week because he was on a two-week vacation.

Kind of makes you miss the old days of disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was at least open about his Coal Revival Program.

Either way, forget climate change denial. Still in the 19th century regulatory mode, Illinois has become the king of coal denial. And regulated coal destruction.

See more stories tagged with:

coal [19],

dirty coal [20],

climate [21]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/speakeasy/jeffbiggers/illinois-ranks-worst-rogue-coal-state-strip-mine-permit-serial-violator-stuns

Links:

[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jeff-biggers

[2] http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x1084483361/Illinois-coal-production-on-increase-bucking-national-trend

[3] http://www.epa.state.il.us/public-notices/2010/springfield-coal-industry/permit.pdf

[4] http://tristatesradio.com/post/industry-mine-cited-over-600-pollution-violations

[5] http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/Ohio-Attorney-General-asked-to-probe-Cleveland-power-plant-deal-with-Prairie-State-Energy

[6] https://www.dropbox.com/s/yt5d212me0tgbq6/Prairie%20State%20Report.pdf

[7] http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/documents/IllinoisatRisk.pdf

[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/coal-slurry-scandal-gov-q_b_1119032.html

[9] http://www.citizensagainstlongwallmining.org/

[10] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/coal-marketing_b_882383.html

[11] http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130228/NEWS11/130229710/durbin-blasts-exelon-for-futuregen-betrayal

[12] http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-28/business/chi-ameren-pulls-out-of-futuregen-20111128_1_futuregen-project-futuregen-alliance-ameren

[13] http://www.npr.org/2012/07/09/155978300/as-mine-protections-fail-black-lung-cases-surge

[14] http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x766892131/Audit-finds-lack-of-mine-inspectors-in-Illinois

[15] http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/04/04/midwest-generation-gets-more-time-to-clean-up-illinois-coal-plants/

[16] http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x848909664/Letter-Consider-coal-severance-tax

[17] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/oct-12th-mother-jones-is_b_759490.html

[18] http://www.epa.state.il.us/public-notices/2010/npdes-notices.html#springfield-coal-industry

[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/coal

[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/dirty-coal

[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/climate-0