Renner Barsella, renner.barsella@sierraclub.org, 217-390-9394
SPRINGFIELD, IL -- Today, Sierra Club Illinois launched a video breaking down the close ties between Governor Rauner and Texas-based coal operators Dynegy-Vistra.
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After a series of backroom talks with Texas-based Dynegy, Governor Rauner’s Illinois EPA, is pushing to weaken Illinois air pollution standards in order to pad their own profits. In addition, Dynegy-Vistra is now also asking the state legislature for permission to raise rates on Central and Southern Illinois households, claiming that ratepayer-funded bailouts are needed to keep coal plants open due to the company’s financial hardship. However, the recent $20 billion merger between Dynegy and Vistra Energy tells a different story, as does a recent interview with Vistra’s CEO highlighted in Sierra Club’s video.
“I don't believe [coal] is going to have a renaissance,” Vistra CEO Curtis Morgan also said in the April CNBC interview. “I think it's on its way out."
Full transcript of video narrated by Press Secretary Renner Barsella, a native of Champaign County:
BARSELLA:
Big Coal is milking profits at Illinois’ expense and cashing out. Texas energy giants Dynegy and Vistra just closed on a merger worth 20 billion dollars and they’re still saying they’re strapped for cash. They’re begging their friend Governor Rauner for backdoor bailouts: rolling back pollution controls and hiking rates that would cost every Central and Southern Illinois household $115 dollars per year on their bills. Despite what Trump says, changing markets mean coal plants are closing around the country, even Vistra’s CEO isn’t mincing words.
VISTRA CEO CURTIS MORGAN:
Our company has to look forward, we’ve shut down 2400 MW of coal in Texas because they just couldn’t make it in today’s world.
BARSELLA:
Yet, Governor Rauner is showing he’s more than happy to help his corporate buddies in Texas cash out -- profits made off the backs of hardworking Illinois families. Our Governor should be demanding worker protections and pollution clean up from these corporations, not pandering to their shareholders. Illinois needs sustainable jobs for working families and bold economic development in coal communities powered by 100% clean energy. Stop Dynegy-Vistra’s big coal bailouts. Let’s make Illinois a state that invests in workers and local businesses, in Illinois, not corporate board rooms in Texas.
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Tell Governor Rauner to reject bailouts for Dynegy-Vistra. sc.org/nocoalbailouts
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.