Republican St. Sen. Sue Rezin blames Gov. Pritzker for the Senate not voting on an energy bill yesterday. She says there was an agreement on subsidizing Exelon’s Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants. But she says thousands of jobs would be lost with the closure of coal-fired power plants by 2035 and natural gas-fired plants after that.
Labor unions had their concerns. So did southern Illinois communities whose electricity comes from power plants that burn coal. Rezin says Pritzker wasn’t willing to negotiate.
On the other side of it, a group called the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition says thousands of union workers and solar energy installers could now lose work. The bill aimed to put Illinois on track to a complete switch to renewable energy by 2050.