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Equitable Jobs. Lower Bills. No Bailouts.
Clean Energy Jobs Act Reintroduced!
Leaders of the Illinois General Assembly and the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC) have reintroduced the Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) with a pledge to pass the comprehensive legislation in the General Assembly by May 2021.
Learn more about all the benefits the Clean Energy Jobs Act has to offer!
The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition held hundreds of listening sessions throughout Illinois
to ensure CEJA meets the needs of real people.
Equitable Workforce & Business Development
The programs and initiatives within the Clean Energy Jobs Act are designed to ensure that the benefits of a thriving clean energy economy are shared by all Illinoisians.
CEJA recognizes and addresses structural, historical, and institutional barriers faced by marginalized communities and directs workforce development resources to counteract those barriers and benefit marginalized job seekers.
Without careful planning and deliberate policy, the benefits of renewable energy can flow towards existing privilege and wealth, leaving low-income and environmental justice communities without access to the clean energy future.
CEJA counteracts that trend through policies and programs specifically designed to bring additional benefits to vulnerable and overburdened communities. In all, CEJA will create $2 billion of investments in low-income and environmental justice communities by 2030.
The climate crisis presents an unprecedented challenge and an unparalleled opportunity. The challenge is that we need to transition our current energy system - largely reliant on expensive and polluting fossil fuels - to clean, affordable renewable energy to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
By creating a funding for 100% renewable energy, CEJA creates one of the most ambitious plans for renewable energy development in the country and puts tens of thousands of Illinois residents to work building our future.
CEJA would expand gas efficiency programs and ensure electric efficiency programs continue past 2030, generating substantial customer savings and billions in economic activity.
Growing these programs can save Illinois consumers $700 million per year.
Consumers not only pay for the energy they use every hour of each day, but for the past decade they have also been paying power plants to be “on call” for just the top 5-10 hours of electricity usage each year.
In fact, these payments are the primary reason why our grid has been slow to decarbonize. Fossil fuels struggle to compete against increasing renewables in the normal market, and have turned to rely on this capacity market to make up their lost profits, keeping around uneconomic plants.
The Clean Energy Jobs Act (CEJA) would transition Illinois’ power sector completely away from fossil fuels by 2030, support workers and communities impacted by the decline of coal, and significantly expand clean energy generation and good-paying clean energy jobs in our state.
Extreme heat and flooding have already cost Illinois more than $6.5 billion and hundreds of lives in recent decades. If no action is taken, by 2050, climate change will cause nearly 1200 deaths and more than $6 billion in damage each year in the Midwest.
CEJA sets new targets for electrification of transportation. It requires utilities to listen to consumers and other stakeholders to plan for a world in transition from fossil fueled vehicles to clean electric vehicles. These new vehicles will require new electricity, so CEJA creates a planning process to ensure the transition is done in a way that lowers costs of the electric grid.
Out-of-state energy corporations have made risky investments in expensive and aging Illinois power plants and mines, and then often closed them with little warning or support for Illinois workers and communities.
We must develop a plan that helps impacted workers and communities adapt to the inevitable energy transition and forge resilient, economic futures. CEJA guides an orderly transition by putting workers and communities first.
By aligning regulation with state and customer priorities, CEJA ensures that electric utilities truly serve the public interest, operate transparently, and are held accountable to Illinois customers and communities.
It gives the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) new authority to oversee utility investments and rates, and it opens opportunities for diverse public stakeholders to guide these decisions.
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