Rush Urges Support for Chicago Clean Power Ordinance at Joint City Council Hearing on Health, Energy, Environment and Utilities

CHICAGO –– Good morning Chairmen Rugai and Balcer and Members of the Committees.

I am elated to be here with you, this morning, having been afforded this opportunity to testify at your joint committee hearing in support of the Clean Power Ordinance. I would especially like to commend Alderman Joe Moore, of the 49th Ward, for introducing this ordinance last April.

As a former Chicago City Council member representing the 2nd ward on Chicago’s south side for eight years, as a former Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection and, now, as the leading Democrat and Ranking Member on the  U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, I can appreciate the magnitude, the significance, and the importance of this ordinance.

Today I am noting the critical support of 26 aldermen and almost 60 local coalition partners who refuse to stand on the sidelines while thousands of vulnerable young people, adults, and seniors struggle to breathe comfortably but cannot due to their proximity to the Fisk and Crawford power plants. I am proud to stand with these men, women, and prominent organizations of Chicago, who are taking affirmative steps to rid our precious communities and neighborhoods of irritating, damaging and costly air pollutants.

Here is the problem. Chicago is the only major U.S. city having two coal-burning power plants operating within city confines. Each of these plants in Fisk and Crawford is over 100 years old. To make matters worse, these old coal-fired plants depend on 50-year old boilers that lack modern pollution controls. Because the predominant fossil fuel source for electric generation in our country, coal, is responsible for 80 percent of the carbon dioxide that electric utilities release, such pollution controls are essential and integral to a cleaner, safer and more life-sustaining environment.

I have seen first-hand the negative impacts that these power plants are having on the health of Chicagoans. My district, the 1st Congressional District, is directly adjacent to these plants, in southwest Chicago. And the constituents in my district, who have to breathe in this pollution, suffer some of the most negative impacts with regard to their health and lost productivity outcomes in the city of Chicago.

There are abnormally high rates of asthma in my district in comparison to Illinois’ general asthma rates. For example, in parts of West Inglewood, over 30 percent of the residents suffer from asthma. This compares much less favorably to statewide figures for Illinois asthma cases, compiled in 2008, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP). The CDCP reported in 2008 that 13 percent of Illinois adults had been diagnosed with asthma and that close to 8.5 percent of Illinois children had been similarly diagnosed.

These rates of asthma are so out of whack that they merit immediate scrutiny and action. By moving the Clean Ordinance along to passage, Chicago can solve its own problems, and not wait for the State or for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to
adopt and enforce greenhouse gas and other air-quality regulations.

Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a number of new regulations to reduce the amounts of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, and other toxic agents that power plants emit. Notwithstanding these well-intended proposals, I am all but too familiar with the battle which is currently being fought in Washington to strip the EPA of its Clean Air Act authority in protecting our public health and environmental safety. And, I am aware, notwithstanding a pending U.S. government enforcement action taken against the Fisk and Crawford plants for alleged violations under the Clean Air Act, that that proceeding has moved far too slowly.

It is time for the Chicago City Council to step up and to act now!

If the Federal Government or the State of Illinois will not act or is reluctant to act, then the Council must fill those gaps of inaction and remedy a serious problem that is only bound to get worse.

Chicago can be and should be not just a responder, but a first responder to these local health problems that have been caused by these two, old and highly polluting power plants.

Thank you for the time, Committee Chairmen, that you have allotted to me. All things considered, Chicago does not have a choice except to act, and to act decisively. I am confident that Chicago is up to this task.

In closing, I respectfully urge you to support and vote for the Chicago Clean Power Ordinance.

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