SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Big Coal Lobby Gets Big Taxpayer Payout
Utility Giant Rake in $1 Billion to Create FutureGen Toxic Dump
Sep 30, 2010
Party down, Big Coal lobbyists! Give those Ameren utility dudes a raise.
After investing nearly $800,000 in political contributions, Big Coal utility giant Ameren just got confirmation that a pay off check for nearly $1 billion is in the mail, courtesy of US taxpayers.
Rock on, Energy Secretary Steven Chu!
All Ameren has to do is kinda sorta maybe refashion one of its coal-ash spewing World War II-era coal-fired and oil-burning plants into FutureGen 2.0--an infeasible, prohibitively expensive, accident and leak-prone,
and chimerical scheme of oxy-combustion technology that will sorta
kinda maybe capture, compress, pump and dump CO2 into Illinois' aquifers
and porous caverns.
Don't worry: The company helping Ameren built the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, so they're good to go.
And get this: Ameren is already sending its boys over to Illinois to soak the state's taxpayers for a probable hike in utility rakes to cover any costs not bankrolled by the federal "clean coal" welfare program.
As business leaders in Mattoon, Illinois noted recently,
after their town got shafted on the FUTUREGEN rollercoaster, they even
question why anyone wants to "become the 'dumping' ground for other
people's waste."
Good question. The answer, according to US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
is a handful of jobs. After receiving over $135,000 in political
contributions from Ameren and other Big Coal lobbyists, Durbin can now
crow that he pulled in $1 billion in US taxpayer funds from the federal
stimulus to create approximately "500 jobs, pipeline construction would add another 275, and there would be 75 new permanent jobs."
Do the math: Those are some expensive government-funded and subsidized jobs.
Too bad the cancer-plagued farmers contaminated by coal slurry in nearby Illinois communities never received such compensation.
Too bad nearby farmers are now losing their ancestral farm houses and fertile rows of corn to longwall mining and more coal slurry is slated for their aquifers.
Too bad Illinois coal miners who are dying daily from black lung disease can't get a little more of this pork.
FutureGen 2.0 is not even scheduled to sorta kinda operate on a
commercial scale for a decade, so we don't even need to note the issue
of peak coal and FutureGen's increased coal production needs.
No, today is party day for Big Coal and it utility partners, and Big Coal-bankrolled politicians like US. Sen. Dick Durbin.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers is the author of In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy, and other works of history.
Party down, Big Coal lobbyists! Give those Ameren utility dudes a raise.
After investing nearly $800,000 in political contributions, Big Coal utility giant Ameren just got confirmation that a pay off check for nearly $1 billion is in the mail, courtesy of US taxpayers.
Rock on, Energy Secretary Steven Chu!
All Ameren has to do is kinda sorta maybe refashion one of its coal-ash spewing World War II-era coal-fired and oil-burning plants into FutureGen 2.0--an infeasible, prohibitively expensive, accident and leak-prone,
and chimerical scheme of oxy-combustion technology that will sorta
kinda maybe capture, compress, pump and dump CO2 into Illinois' aquifers
and porous caverns.
Don't worry: The company helping Ameren built the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, so they're good to go.
And get this: Ameren is already sending its boys over to Illinois to soak the state's taxpayers for a probable hike in utility rakes to cover any costs not bankrolled by the federal "clean coal" welfare program.
As business leaders in Mattoon, Illinois noted recently,
after their town got shafted on the FUTUREGEN rollercoaster, they even
question why anyone wants to "become the 'dumping' ground for other
people's waste."
Good question. The answer, according to US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
is a handful of jobs. After receiving over $135,000 in political
contributions from Ameren and other Big Coal lobbyists, Durbin can now
crow that he pulled in $1 billion in US taxpayer funds from the federal
stimulus to create approximately "500 jobs, pipeline construction would add another 275, and there would be 75 new permanent jobs."
Do the math: Those are some expensive government-funded and subsidized jobs.
Too bad the cancer-plagued farmers contaminated by coal slurry in nearby Illinois communities never received such compensation.
Too bad nearby farmers are now losing their ancestral farm houses and fertile rows of corn to longwall mining and more coal slurry is slated for their aquifers.
Too bad Illinois coal miners who are dying daily from black lung disease can't get a little more of this pork.
FutureGen 2.0 is not even scheduled to sorta kinda operate on a
commercial scale for a decade, so we don't even need to note the issue
of peak coal and FutureGen's increased coal production needs.
No, today is party day for Big Coal and it utility partners, and Big Coal-bankrolled politicians like US. Sen. Dick Durbin.
Jeff Biggers
Jeff Biggers is the author of In Sardinia: An Unexpected Journey in Italy, and other works of history.
Party down, Big Coal lobbyists! Give those Ameren utility dudes a raise.
After investing nearly $800,000 in political contributions, Big Coal utility giant Ameren just got confirmation that a pay off check for nearly $1 billion is in the mail, courtesy of US taxpayers.
Rock on, Energy Secretary Steven Chu!
All Ameren has to do is kinda sorta maybe refashion one of its coal-ash spewing World War II-era coal-fired and oil-burning plants into FutureGen 2.0--an infeasible, prohibitively expensive, accident and leak-prone,
and chimerical scheme of oxy-combustion technology that will sorta
kinda maybe capture, compress, pump and dump CO2 into Illinois' aquifers
and porous caverns.
Don't worry: The company helping Ameren built the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, so they're good to go.
And get this: Ameren is already sending its boys over to Illinois to soak the state's taxpayers for a probable hike in utility rakes to cover any costs not bankrolled by the federal "clean coal" welfare program.
As business leaders in Mattoon, Illinois noted recently,
after their town got shafted on the FUTUREGEN rollercoaster, they even
question why anyone wants to "become the 'dumping' ground for other
people's waste."
Good question. The answer, according to US Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)
is a handful of jobs. After receiving over $135,000 in political
contributions from Ameren and other Big Coal lobbyists, Durbin can now
crow that he pulled in $1 billion in US taxpayer funds from the federal
stimulus to create approximately "500 jobs, pipeline construction would add another 275, and there would be 75 new permanent jobs."
Do the math: Those are some expensive government-funded and subsidized jobs.
Too bad the cancer-plagued farmers contaminated by coal slurry in nearby Illinois communities never received such compensation.
Too bad nearby farmers are now losing their ancestral farm houses and fertile rows of corn to longwall mining and more coal slurry is slated for their aquifers.
Too bad Illinois coal miners who are dying daily from black lung disease can't get a little more of this pork.
FutureGen 2.0 is not even scheduled to sorta kinda operate on a
commercial scale for a decade, so we don't even need to note the issue
of peak coal and FutureGen's increased coal production needs.
No, today is party day for Big Coal and it utility partners, and Big Coal-bankrolled politicians like US. Sen. Dick Durbin.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.