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Retail power sellers will need to shift from month-to-month prices to fixed prices for 12 months under reform legislation taking effect next year. Here's how CleanChoice Energy, which has leaned on variable pricing in the past, is responding. Effectively, CleanChoice is saying that buying renewable energy certificates from Illinois wind farms, which allows it to make its green-energy claims, costs far more than RECs from out-of-state wind farms. That flies in the face of the message that the renewable power industry is delivering, which is that the cost of producing wind power has fallen dramatically in recent years and is competitive with fossil fuels.
Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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