The following was written by Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter.
Two dozen health, faith, farm, and environmental advocates joined with us this week to urge the Illinois House to reject a proposal to force Illinois ratepayers to subsidize the coal plant proposed by the Tenaska corporation. Twenty-five organizations signed the letter to Illinois lawmakers, a sign of new and growing opposition due to concerns about pollution from Tenaska’s plant and its very high cost.
“Creating a new electric plant that requires us to mine and burn more Illinois coal in communities already suffering from the effects of mining, while it places a long-term surcharge on the electricity costs for low-income people is not only poor policy, it is unjust,” said Rev. Dr. Clare Butterfield, Executive Director, Faith in Place and the Illinois Interfaith Power & Light Campaign, among the faith leaders joining opposition to Tenaska’s legislation.
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With ties to Occupy Chicago about a dozen protesters covered
themselves in fake oil and performed a symbolic death in front of the
Canadian Consulate in downtown Chicago Thursday evening. 
The closing date for the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants was pushed forward to this September, which provides a sense of urgency for Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. The Crawford plant in Little Village was initially slated to close in December 2014, as set by a February 
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel unveiled today the members of a city task
force empowered to decide what is to happen with the Fisk and Crawford
coal-fired power plant sites when they go offline, as well as the
best way to clean up pollution from the century old facilities.
In a year that has already brought both one of the mildest winters on
record to the Midwest while delivering a rash of devastating tornadoes
to portions of the Southwest, findings of a new report suggest the
number of people affected by extreme weather events will likely increase
if more is not done to curb climate change.
Judy Lihota, president of the Calumet Ecological Park
Association, has been fighting for more than a decade to preserve the
natural environment in the Calumet region of Chicago on the South East
Side.