THIRD WORLD ECONOMICS
It’s now moving through the Illinois General Assembly with very broad sponsorship and exceptionally well-organized support. It’s a 365-page monstrosity of bureaucratic overreach, unhinged social engineering, climate extremism and shameless disregard for cost.
It’s called the Clean Energy Jobs Act. It would put specificity and the force of law behind the core concepts of the Green New Deal spearheaded by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Green New Deal has been ridiculed widely even by many on the left and some environmentalists. Primarily, that’s because of the cost of completely eliminating fossil fuels, which unquestionably would be in the trillions for the nation. One estimate puts that cost at $93 trillion. It’s also loaded with pretty much every social justice goal du jour. Democrat presidential possibility Howard Schultz ripped it as “immoral” and “unrealistic.” It would “bring about mass death,” wrote a Greenpeace co-founder.
The Illinois bill’s central goals are 100% carbon-free electricity production by 2030, and 100% renewable everything across the state by 2050. Importantly, that means the 2050 goal precludes even nuclear energy, which currently accounts for about half of Illinois’ electricity production.
Under the Illinois bill, natural gas would be history. Rip out all those gas ranges, gas furnaces (that heat 77% of Illinois homes) and the rest over the next 30 years. The entire natural gas infrastructure, pipelines and all, would be abandoned.
The bill calls for 40 million solar panels and 2,500 wind turbines alongside $20 billion in new infrastructure over the next decade. One million gas and diesel vehicles would come off Illinois roads.
The Illinois bill is loaded with social justice goals. There are tedious requirements for a Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs Program; “environmental justice communities”; job creation for ex-offenders and former foster children; “energy empowerment zones”; workforce and training including soft skills and math to ensure communities of color, returning citizens, foster care communities and others understand clean energy opportunities; stipends for jobs and apprenticeships, including funding for transportation and child care; access to low-cost capital for disadvantaged clean energy businesses and contractors; and much, much more.
What’s most annoying is sheer indifference to cost, which is probably immeasurable anyway given the bill’s vast complexity. Don’t expect to find an estimate anywhere. National critics of the Green New Deal immediately asked about cost, but in Illinois, it just doesn’t matter. Broke Illinois would somehow have to pay a proportionate share of the multi-trillion-dollar cost estimates for the Green New Deal.
Could it really pass into law?
Companion bills are now pending in both the Illinois House and Senate. Together, they have over 50 sponsors.
Governor Pritzker has not yet commented on the bill. However, in his first days in office he committed to the goal of 100% renewables by 2050. It was not clear if he intended to exclude nuclear.
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