CEJA could spur $39B investment
Clean energy would produce $6B in state, local tax revenue over 20 years, says new study
Energy-generating wind turbines rise above farm fields in central Illinois. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
The Clean Energy Jobs Act could spur $39 billion in private investment over the next decade and produce $6 billion in state and local tax revenue over 20 years, according to a new study released this week.
The economic-impact report, released Monday by the Accelerate Group, which calls itself “an Illinois-based consulting firm that provides analysis and other support for energy policy, civic policy, and other initiatives,” comes as advocates declared Tuesday to be a CEJA Lobby Day during the General Assembly’s veto session, with an afternoon news conference set for the Capitol.
The study, “compiled from sources such as the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Energy Information Administration, published studies and reports, and other publicly available resources,” projects that CEJA “will lead to $39 billion of direct private investment into Illinois by 2030, above and beyond any explicit subsidy, utility expenditure, or charge to customers.”
It also finds that $1.5 billion a year “will be invested directly into workforce and labor expenditures, with significant amount of geographic spread in those investments across the state.” That, in turn, will help generate an estimated $6 billion in state and local taxes over the next 20 years, with $2.2 billion coming in state income and sales taxes and $3.9 billion in local sales and property taxes.
CEJA is sponsored by state Sen. Cristina Castro of Elgin and state Rep. Ann Williams of Chicago, who planned a 1 p.m. “Rally for Clean Energy Jobs” in the Capitol Rotunda along with other advocates.
The act has been embraced up by Illinois Youth Climate Strike as a key initiative in the push to address climate change.
Tuesday figured to be a day of lobbying for better air, as the grassroots groups Stop Sterigenics and Stop EtO in Lake County also planned to push for new state regulations on ethylene oxide.
Environmental groups across the state, meanwhile, have formed the Clean Energy Jobs Coalition to lobby for CEJA. Gov. Pritzker, however, has expressed doubts about whether it will pass during the veto session and has pushed for it to be taken up anew next year. State Rep. Rita Mayfield of Waukegan recently declared, “I can confidently say that we have the votes in the House to pass the bill.”
Yet passage is also complicated by an ongoing federal investigation into state Sen. Martin Sandoval of Chicago, former head of the Senate Transportation Committee, which has also embroiled energy-industry lobbyists.