SPRINGFIELD — Heading into the end of the legislative session, consumer advocates, renewable energy industry groups and environmental advocates were hopeful about a bill that would have overhauled Illinois’ energy industry.
It would have been the largest energy reform in years, touching almost every part of the state’s electricity sector. Some said it would have been as significant as the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act — the law that requires fossil-fuel burning power plants to shutter by 2045.
But lawmakers declined to take up the bill, kicking the can down the line on energy reform for the second time this year after initially punting on the issue during the January lame duck session.
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“It was a confluence of factors,” Christine Nannicelli, a Sierra Club organizer and longtime environmental advocate, told Capitol News Illinois. “To a certain extent, it was a product of running out of time.”
Lawmakers had a fairly large to-do list going into the final day of the legislative session, including approving the multiple bills that make up the state’s annual budget and a large reform package dealing with public transit in northern Illinois.
That transit legislation was also a high priority for environmental groups and labor organizations — both of which were central to the fight over energy reform.
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In addition to environmentalists and labor, the bill was being negotiated by representatives of the governor’s office, major utilities and representatives of the renewable energy industry.
The push for an energy reform package grew out of a growing sense of concern that the state won’t be able to meet its ambitious climate goals. The rise of power-hungry data centers has placed significant demands on the electric grid at a time when the supply of electricity is stagnant or falling.
This situation has already led to higher prices. This month, prices on residential electric bills are increasing by an average of $10.60 per month for Commonwealth Edison customers in northern Illinois and by $45 per month for Ameren Illinois customers downstate.
Read more: Lawmakers seek ways to prevent data centers from straining Illinois’ power grids | Summer electric price spike fuels policy tensions in Springfield
While lawmakers couldn’t do anything to stop those increases, the prospect of prices staying high for longer has frustrated some advocates.
“We’re gonna lick our wounds,” Anna Markowski, who works on Midwestern issues for the Natural Resource Defense Council, said in an interview.
Signals that negotiations were heating up — and possibly breaking down — came two weeks before session ended on Saturday. A proposal from environmental groups to impose new costs on data centers drew fierce public criticism.
A letter urging Gov. JB Pritzker to oppose the…
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