Editorial: Illinois lawmakers should sustain Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s veto of this unwarranted gift to Ameren

Illinois’ track record with energy legislation is, shall we say, checkered.

Michael Madigan, for decades the state’s most powerful politician, mayors and governors notwithstanding, is awaiting trial on multiple felony counts in large part due to his relationship with Commonwealth Edison, the state’s largest utility and at one time most politically potent company. ComEd’s former CEO, Anne Pramaggiore, is awaiting sentencing after being convicted along with three others in May of bribing Madigan with no-work jobs for cronies, among other things, for supporting highly lucrative legislation in Springfield.

Over five years, from 2011 to 2016, those laws — plural — meant billions to ComEd and parent Exelon. The source of the cash, courtesy of then-Speaker Madigan and fellow state lawmakers, was you, me and everyone else paying electric bills.

So it’s maddening to see that Springfield is considering another similar gift to the politically connected in the energy world.

No, not ComEd. They’re still in the political penalty box. This time, it’s Ameren Illinois, the utility serving all of downstate.

A bill that surfaced suddenly in late May and passed in the final hours of the spring session would hand Ameren a monopoly over the future development and operation of high-voltage power lines in its territory. Gov. J.B. Pritzker vetoed the measure, saying it would “put corporate profits over consumers.”

Now, with the General Assembly’s fall veto session opening Tuesday, lawmakers will have to decide whether to attempt an override. The decision belongs to Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, since the House must act first. He has yet to say what he will do.

Pritzker was right to veto the measure, and Welch should let it perish.

So how did we get here? The country needs more high-voltage transmission of power. These are the lines that traverse many miles, often across state lines, to transmit electricity generated by power plants to population centers.

In the past, when our electricity came mainly from large central power stations — think nuclear reactors and coal and natural gas burners — we didn’t need as many of these lines. We require more now because decarbonization efforts require fewer coal and gas plants and many more renewable sources of power, which by their nature are dispersed. Wind farms in far-flung, lightly populated areas can’t get their output to market unless there are lines connecting them to the grid.

In Ameren’s downstate Illinois territory, more than $3.6 billion worth of new transmission lines is planned, Pritzker said in his veto message. The bill he vetoed would give Ameren “right of first refusal” over building and operating those, effectively elbowing out competitive bids that could lower costs for ratepayers.

A major national priority of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the measure is designed to ensure members of IBEW locals get all the work tied to the projects. It was an eleventh-hour push by Washington, D.C.-based IBEW President Kenneth Cooper, who called Illinois legislative leaders personally in the final days of the spring session, that got Springfield’s attention. Opponents were blindsided.

The bill passed the Senate with a comfortable veto-proof majority. The House sent it to the governor, but a large number of members choosing not to vote kept the margin short of the veto-proof threshold.

Proponents said they wanted to ensure Illinois union workers got the jobs rather than out-of-state workers. Companies opposing the measure said they would be fine with a state requirement that they employ union workers. Didn’t matter in the end.

Of course, as is often the case in the utility business — dependent as it is on public officials, who must approve its rates — there’s no shortage of hypocrisy here. Ameren, whose parent company is based in St. Louis and operates throughout the Midwest, lobbied against a similar proposal seven years ago in Kansas when the incumbent utilities there wanted the monopoly and Ameren was interested in bidding on work. That was then, this is now, Ameren says.

By the way, Ameren’s home state of Missouri managed to reject a similar proposal earlier this year despite Ameren’s entreaties. Ameren’s not even based here, and still our politicians couldn’t resist.

So Welch now must decide whether to give Ameren and the IBEW this goody at the expense of Illinois businesses and consumers. In the past, that unfortunately would have been an easy call for him, or any other Democratic leader in Springfield, beholden as they’ve been to unions.

But now utility bills are rising thanks to several factors, not the least of which are numerous surcharges in electric bills throughout the state reflecting Springfield’s past support (using your money) of renewable power, utility-run energy efficiency programs, nuclear subsidies … you name it.

The costs of these transmission lines are no small part of your electric bill, either. Giving Ameren a monopoly over them in the future ensures the cost increases for those projects will be higher than necessary.

You might be wondering at this point where ComEd fits in. The IBEW, which also represents ComEd workers, knew better than even to ask Springfield to shower the disgraced Chicago utility with such a gift.

But make no mistake: If Ameren gets the authority, it’s all but definite ComEd eventually will be granted it as well. ComEd just will have to wait for the public anger to die down, and then its unions will lean on Springfield lawmakers to do the same for ComEd in northern Illinois.

It’s your money that state lawmakers are pledging to their utility and union friends in order to preserve their campaign cash and political help at election time.

Plaudits to Pritzker, who hasn’t exactly been known to buck unions when they want something badly enough, for finally saying no to this utility industry largesse. If the ComEd scandal wasn’t sufficient to stop this shameless mutual back-scratching between lawmakers and utilities, nothing ever will.

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