Last week, Vistra announced plans to shutter its remaining Illinois based coal-fired power plants over the next seven years. Planned closures include the Edwards plant near Peoria slated to close before 2022, the Joppa and Baldwin plants closing no later than 2025, and the Newton and Kincaid plants closing no later than 2027. Vistra cited uneconomic conditions, upcoming environmental filing deadlines, and a commitment to “transition to clean power generation sources and advance efforts to significantly reduce its carbon footprint” as reasons for the closures
The recent announcement comes just one year after Vistra shuttered four other plants, leaving those communities reeling from layoffs, loss of significant tax revenue, and questions about site remediation, including what to do with the remaining coal ash. While the recent closure announcements match our vision for addressing air and water pollution and fighting climate change, Vistra’s plans ignore the devastating impacts on the communities, workers, and economies that depend on the power plants.
The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC), of which PRN is a leading member, has noted the announcement creates “an urgent call for Gov. Pritzker and the General Assembly to take action to help workers who face lay-offs and local plant communities that will lose significant tax revenue.”
Over the last three years, Prairie Rivers Network has been hosting and participating in community conversations, town halls, press conferences, and meetings with coal community members and leaders to better understand the impacts and challenges of coal plant closure and examine how state policy and community planning can help alleviate some of those impacts.
Clean Energy Jobs Act
With input from coal communities and our partners at the ICJC, we’ve developed policy solutions in the Clean Energy Jobs Act that provide real support to coal communities and workers in the transition to cleaner energy. The Energy Community Reinvestment Act provides tax base replacement, secure worker benefits and retraining, incentives for new investment in clean energy projects, and support for new economic opportunities in transitioning coal communities.
Vistra continues to push its own self-interested legislative agenda, known as the Coal to Solar and Energy Storage Act that uses ratepayer money and grants to keep some of Vistra’s existing plants online through 2025 and to fund solar and battery projects exclusively on a limited number of Vistra-owned coal plant sites. While Vistra talks about their bill as a “transition” bill, it does little to support energy workers and communities.
The energy transition underway in Illinois and throughout the nation impacts many communities beyond those hosting Vistra’s plants. The transition is wide reaching and it is inevitable, affecting coal mining towns, cities with nuclear plants, and other coal plant communities, like Waukegan. Ratepayers statewide should not be paying for a solution that’s essentially a bailout for Vistra, improperly extending the life of its plants and directing renewable energy funding to a single company. The Clean Energy Jobs Act offers comprehensive solutions that support and uphold the dignity of energy transitioning communities and workers. Together we can make this transition equitable and economically successful.
Amanda Pankau coordinates our campaign to bring information to communities about the benefits of renewable energy and the costs of non-renewable sources, such as coal.
