I want to start out by being grateful for the group that I
am in here at the Park Forest Unitarian Universalist Church. I have been able to inherit the legacy left
behind by our late Fenn Taylor of the Care for the Earth Series. I hope to do
as well as Fenn did in his time with it.
I would like to go into now about a topic of global warming,
possible corporate ugliness, testifying in Springfield Illinois, dirty coal,
asthma, workers losing their jobs. Got an email from Sierra Club telling of a
hearing of 5 coal plants being sold to Dynegy Energy corp out of Texas. Dynegy
corp would like a 5 year variance on the pollution control investment or they
will close down 2 of the plants. Would I
like to come testify or present my point of view in Springfield in front of the
Illinois Pollution Control Board. That is like flies on honey for me.
The hearing was Tuesday,
September 17 starting at 9:00 am
in the morning. There would be a free bus leaving Chicago at 6 am in the
morning and 3 meals will be paid for. Wow!!!!! How can I turn that down. I
would of paid to go, but this is just fine also.
Now to get to work on the UUCPF crowd. There were a lot of
people that wanted to go, but there were pressing responsibilities pulling them
in other directions. But when you get the chance to make an impact on something
this big, by all means go for the ride. Of the Unitarians that could pull
themselves away, Rich Oram and Andy Stevens made the commitment.
We are headed to 70 East Lake Street which is in front of
the Sierra Club headquarters in Chicago. I stayed overnight at Rich’s house to
take the electric train to millennium station downtown Chicago. On the train at
4:35 am Rich opened Dynegy Corp on Wikipedia to read out loud what they were
about. Ken Lay (who is now in jail) helped to start this group awhile back in
the 1980’s. There are several names and spin offs all the while till Dynegy is
finally arrived at. What we are noticing, there a few ceo’s going to jail,
holding companies that absorb the debt, other companies that get all the
profit. The in debt company goes bankrupt and poof, the debt is all gone. There
are law suits up and down dealing with their business model. This company could
be modeled for the bad greedy corporations in a movie.
We get off the train thinking we only have a short time to
get to the bus before it leaves. There are about 4 or 5 people there when we
arrive and we are fed bagels, donuts and coffee. Turns out we didn’t leave until
7:10 am. Could of had an hour’s more sleep out of this. Chicago to Springfield
Illinois would be on the order of 200 miles. Going through Chicago traffic in
the beginning and then out into the country we arrived in Springfield sometime
after 12:00 pm. Signed into the Illinois EPA building, had a room to put our
stuff and into the hearing we went. The place was packed with Ameren employees
wearing bright safety vests as their group identity. There was about 40 or 50
Sierra Club people compared to about 100 Ameren employees. From rumors, the
employees were paid to be there. One woman overheard in the bathroom, the
lady’s supervisor told her she had to be there or she would be fired. She had
wanted to stay back for her daughter’s baseball game.
This being my first hearing, it was interesting to watch the
different testimonies of the many employees asking for the variance to go
through so that they could keep their jobs. There was a break for lunch as we went back to our
spacious room. My thought going back in is this was a real set up by the
company to possibly pit environmentalists up against jobs. Truthfully I’m angry about the workers being
pawns in the Dynegy game. Dynegy from
my point of view isn’t any more behind these workers than they need to be. Just
don’t cost Dynegy very much money.
Testimony continues with business people getting up and
saying that Dynegy is great for their business and how reputable they are. They
would all like the variance to be approved. The reason given is that there needs
to be certainty in the business market and this variance will give them the
business confidence that they need. Many testimonies of just regular life that
depends on making a living, community leadership in their towns, boy scouts,
girl scouts, softball, baseball, schools ect. I believe this to be true. If the
two plants are closed down this will take a big chunk of money out of those
communities. Layoffs at schools and other small businesses will have to close
up shop. The overall demeanor of the testimony of the pro variance was rather
light in intensity.
When the Sierra Club members stepped up to the plate, the
tone was a different one. We came on
with passion about our position on the variance. Obviously we are against the
variance. Richard came up and brought his Hospice nursing experience of the
pain his patients are in when they can’t breath in the last stages of their
life. This would refer to the asthma that people get when in the high pollution
zones living down from the power plants. These people die from not being able
to breath at the end of their life suffering the whole way. Andy Stevens
started out with “If I were in a different situation, I would be like you
talking to keep my job.” Referring to the Ameren employees. Andy looked them in
the eyes and spoke clearly to them letting them know how he felt. Andy went on
to finish the rest of his testimony. My turn up to bat, I had prepared
something the day before on prenatal and childhood development from fossil fuel
pollution. After hearing all the different testimonies no one was talking about
global warming. Basically I was flying without any notes to refer to. I was
short sweet and to the point. I remember mentioning that we can easily reach
3*C by 2100 from carbon pollution. And yet there was an answer to this dilemma.
The world can run on 100% renewable energy. Out of Stanford University, there
are several peer reviewed science papers showing just how to do that. I looked
at the Ameren Employees in the room, “We can put all of them to work building
the new energy system.”
A lot of the Sierra Club people got up and literally hit the
ball out of the park. They were on message, they had intensity, it was a great
team effort. The ride home was later than I thought getting in my door at
midnight and going to work the next day up at 6:15. I would do it again though.
For those of you with internet capability, the Environmental
Law and Policy Center has put it succinctly as to Dynegy’s plans. They are
claiming hardship as Ameren truly was by having a shell company with no funding
that is taking over the five plants. Dynegy themselves are well healed to do
the work of pollution control.
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