This letter to the editor in the State Journal-Register is worth re-posting.
It responds to an "Our Opinion" piece from the editors which laments that the proposed Taylorville Tenaska plant died due to the clout of Exelon and other companies. That's a little hard to swallow when they're pushing a ridiculous project that would never receive serious consideration from the legislature if it weren't for the clout of Illinois coal lobbyists. Clout is Tenaska attempting to raise the electric and gas heating bills of everyone in the state in a desperate attempt to prop up the dying coal industry.
Anyway, here's an excellent response they published today.
Letter: Tenaska plan just bad public policy
The Friday editorial, “Clout carries the day vs. Tenaska,” refuses to recognize that there are honest public policy reasons to oppose the Tenaska power plant proposal and that an unprecedented array of constituencies is fighting against it.
The Chamber of Commerce and Sierra Club are rarely on the same side of a public policy issue, but they have found common cause in opposing the Tenaska plant. The Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Illinois Retail Merchants Association, Illinois Farm Bureau and a host of other business organizations have argued that the above market rates mandated by Tenaska — at five times current market prices — would hurt our state’s economy, job prospects and consumers.
These groups and many others agree with the Illinois Commerce Commission’s conclusion that this “project features high costs to ratepayers with uncertain future benefits, and uncertainties that potentially add to already significant costs.”
Competitive electric suppliers, who provide more than half of the electricity consumed in the state and serve more than 74 percent of the nonresidential load, are against the Tenaska plant because they will be forced to enter into a 30-year, above-market contract as a condition for doing business in Illinois. This is an unprecedented requirement for a competitive retail electric market and threatens to reverse the success that Illinois has enjoyed for more than a decade.
Environmental groups oppose Tenaska because it would be no cleaner than a natural gas plant and much more expensive than wind and other true renewable resources.
The reason the Tenaska plant has encountered a diverse set of opponents is because the project will have a diverse set of negative consequences for our state. It’s just terrible public policy. That’s why projects like it have already been rejected, abandoned or shelved in 11 states. It’s not about “hysteria.” It’s about facts and truth.
Kevin Wright
President
Illinois Competitive Energy Association
Springfield