Information Beans: Joint Committee on Government Reform

A reform committee assembled to keep Illinois government intact announced their schedule and the areas of controversy it will examine.

The Joint Committee on Government Reform will meet seven times between February 18 and March 31 and hold hearings on four different subjects: open government, outside influences, campaign reform, and procurement issues. The committee is headed by Senate President James Cullerton and House Speaker Mike Madigan.

“We hope that the release of this schedule will help everyone to better understand the scope of the work that the Joint Committee plans to undertake,” Madigan said.

The committee will not only discuss the controversies surrounding the impeachment, but other things that have been proposed through legislation as well.

“We will be reaching out to experts and observers from across the nation who can offer their insights to the Joint Committee,” Cullerton said.

The committee was proposed by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and was approved by the House and Senate through a resolution. The resolution suggests that the committee bring forth legislation that will carry ethics back into Illinois government.

The committee was formed because of Rod Blagojevich’s recent impeachment and Illinois’ history of corrupt government. Its members will meet weekly and hope to have legislation proposals ready for consideration by April.

The committee will hold its first meetings on February 18 and 24. The subject for these meetings will be open government. These meetings’ topics will include public reporting of governmental waste, accessing information online, and public disclosure of reports. There will also be reforms to the Compensation Review Act and the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

One issue that was noted in the resolution was whistleblowing, which is alleging misconduct within government. Such allegations are made to government officials, as well as outside parties, and have been a hot topic surrounding the Blagojevich scandal.

The next two meetings will take place on March 3 and 10 and will review the issue of outside influences on government. Various practices will be examined, including the concept of revolving door, which is interchanging jobs between government and industry, thus creating conflicts of interest.

The committee also looks to tackle such issues as lobbyist registration, gift bans, and the roles of special government agents.

Campaign reform will be discussed on March 17. These meetings will include such topics as judicial races, contribution limits, and public finance. Contributions from state contractors and appointees will also be examined.

A good portion of the subjects will be discussed on March 24 and 31, where legislation will be suggested about procurement issues. These issues reflect much of the recent corruption in Illinois. There is currently a Procurement Policy Board in place, and the committee would like to increase its oversight.

Another goal is to eliminate loopholes to competitive bidding within government, which was a controversial topic surrounding the impeachment of Blagojevich. The committee also plans to tighten conflict-of-interest provisions and eliminate gift bans for pension trustees.

These meetings will take place in the State Capitol Room and be available for public viewing with live streaming video on the General Assembly’s website. The link for these videos is www.ilga.gov/house/audvid.asp.

Both Madigan and Cullerton will appoint four members, while Sen. Minority Leader Christine Radogno and House Minority Leader Tom Cross will have two appointees each; 16 politicians will make up the committee.

Madigan has named his four appointees: House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, Deputy Majority Leaders Art Turner and Gary Hannig, and Assistant House Majority Leader Edward Acevedo. Cullerton’s four appointees are Sen. Majority Leader James Clayborne, Majority Caucus Whip Susan Garrett, and Sens. Maggie Crotty, and William Delgado.

Information Beans: Southern Illinois Regional Social Services

One person’s dreams of helping others have been put on hold because of something out of her hands: a struggling economy and a corrupt governor.

Karen Freitag, the executive director of the Southern Illinois Regional Social Services, has been helping people throughout the community of Carbondale for the last decade.

“At the time, the organization had dived into a hole,” said Freitag,. “I had to rebuild it.”

Freitag did rebuild the SIRSS, but the last few years have been hard financially. As a non-profit organization, the SIRSS relies on the state for almost all of its funding.

“It’s hard when the state doesn’t pay in a timely fashion,” Freitag said.

Getting less money from the state has meant budget cuts, lay-offs bank loans. None of this has been easy on Freitag, who graduated from Southern Illinois University and got her master’s in social work at Arizona State University.

Freitag spent 16 years in Arizona putting others before herself. This meant lots of non-profit work and caring for the mentally disabled.

Although Freitag enjoyed working directly with those less fortunate, she found her real passion on the administrative side.. She found herself better suited for policy-making and dealing with budgets within her non-profit organization.

In 1999, Freitag brought her leadership skills to the SIRSS, along with her drive to make a difference.

“Our top concern, which is our motto, is being ‘the best we can be,’” Freitag said, who feels that her organization can always do better.

Recently this motto has been put to the test: the country’s economic downturn has taken a toll on Freitag, who has had to lay-off 13 employees in the past year.

Although it may not seem like a huge number, it has taken a toll on those who depend upon the SIRSS get better. This includes mental health patients, substance and drug abusers, and children who have grown up in abusive environments.

Some of the lost employees happened to be counselors, which is a big blow to the organization. “Losing counselors makes it harder to help,” Freitag said.

Being a non-profit organization, the SIRSS looks to volunteers for help with such activities as its Big Brothers Big Sisters program. But volunteers can do only so much with patients due to confidentiality problems, and experts are needed for certain situations.

The maximum number of patients a counselor can see in a week is somewhere between 26 and 30. This means, with each counselor lost, the SIRSS is forced to turn away patients..

“Those who can’t get our service have to go somewhere else,” Freitag said.

But don’t other non-profit organizations rely on state funding? Will they have to turn away these patients as well?

The state of Illinois makes up for 90 percent of the organization’s budget. Since the economy has taken a turn for the worse, the state has been delaying payments and the SIRSS has been forced to explore new options.

As for its financial problems, the organization has looked to banks for loans. Unfortunately, during these hard economic problems, banks are less willing to provide them . The SIRSS organization also has to worry about paying interest to these banks when money is not coming in.

Freitag and her service have looked for other solutions, such as going to the media to get the word out. By doing this, they hope to put pressure on the new governor, Pat Quinn, to help with their funding issues. Not much is known of Quinn’s agenda, but Freitag says she sees no immediate end in sight.

“It’s frustrating, but it creates drive,” Freitag said. “We will fight hard.”

Freitag will not only fight hard to keep the organization together for her patients, but for her community as well.

Information Beans: The Future of Coal Part 2

The local level has also been impacted by ongoing concerns about coal and its negative effect on the environment.

The university's Clean Coal Review Board has been a supporter of expanding advanced coal technologies throughout Illinois and locally.

The CCRB stated that it hopes to garner funds from governmental and private institutions to increase clean coal projects in Illinois.

One way it hopes to receive funds is through the Illinois Clean Energy Trust. The trust is a special property tax that values more conventional energy producers, such as coal, as much as newer renewable energy producers, such as wind and solar energy.

From these funds, the CCRB hopes to encourage the distribution of funds throughout Illinois and attract more investors and commercial users to coal.

Along with the ICCI, the local board has noted the negative effects of carbon emissions on the environment and has made it a goal to implement new and better technology for producing coal.

One project has been started by the CCRB that implements the concept of a "coal industrial park," which is aimed at making coal production more environmentally and economically sound.

The new project would make use of by-products of coal combustion and mining for various other purposes. This would increase coal's profitability and make it more environmentally friendly.

But the phrase "more environmentally friendly" implies there are still harmful effects from coal production. This gives renewable energy an edge coal may not be able to match.

With coal production facing such animosity and opposition, accompanied by the fact that it is not renewable and could soon be depleted, it appears as though coal could be on its last leg. What does this mean for the southern Illinois economy?

Since the 1970s, when the CAA was established, coal production has been on the decline, costing some communities many jobs and thousands of dollars. From 1978 to 1996, 46 mines and over 12,000 coal mining jobs were lost in Illinois alone.

Apart from jobs being lost, the slow death of the coal industry will have negative effects on education at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

SIUC is the only university in Illinois that offers both graduate and undergraduate programs in Mining Engineering.

The university has been recognized nationally for its coal research through its Mining and Mineral Resources Engineering Department. The department has recieved a lot of external funding from research facilities and federal and state agencies, averaging about $1 million in funds every year.

Their research goals include the utilization of coal combustion, gasification development, carbon dioxide sequestration, and improved fine coal cleaning methods. If coal technology dies in the near future, the Mining Engineerng program may as well.

Recently, the CRC received a $100,000 grant that will bring advanced equipment to Parkinson labs and the Coal Developmental Park. In an article with the Daily Egyptian, Ken Anderson, an associate profesor of organic chemistry, said the new research will concentrate on making transportation fuel out of coal.

Anderson also sees a much bigger future for coal than most of his opponents.

“Coal is going to be a resource that is used for the next 300 years, at least,” Anderson said. “Now that petroleum has gotten more expensive, it’s very cost-effective to make transportation fluids from coal.”

However, there are many that disagree with Anderson. One of those individuals is Jeff Green, a board member of the Illinois Renewable Energy Association. He sees a much shorter timeline for coal.

"In the next 20 to 40 years, coal needs to disappear as an energy source," Green said. "In reality of the future, coal is no longer affordable."

Many do not want coal to stick around because the harmful environmental effects of coal may too much when compared to new renewable energy techniques.

While more and more people are becoming anti-coal, there are still a number of proponents who see coal being utilized as an environmentally sound and major energy producer in the future. Understanding both sides is essential because the world's enviromental problems will be difficult to solve until there is one combined effort by all energy sectors.

One argument used by coal advocates is affordability. Coal's cost of production and transportation has been reportedly lower than other natural resources, such as oil and natural gas.

Coal has also become a socioeconomially important factor in Illinois, as it is nearly a $1 billion industry.

However, these numbers do not outweigh the growing concern of the negative effects coal has on land, water, and air quality. This is why advanced coal technology has been heavily pushed and promoted in recent years as a way to save the industry.

Clean coal proponents will note various developments that have kept the coal industry above water.

One such concept is the idea of carbon capture, which has been noted alongside the popular idea of sequestration. Both incorporate the idea of capturing carbon dioxide emissions from large sources, such as industrial plants, and storing them underground and away from the atmosphere.

Carbon capture and storage also uses various other ways of storing carbon emissions, such as the ocean, oil fields, reservoirs, and carbon sinks.

Sequestration has picked up ground lately as President Barack Obama has endorsed the practice and hopes to implement it into coal operations. Notably, two Environmental Protection Agency lawyers, Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, are opposed to the construction of any new coal plants that do not store their carbon emissions underground. Al Gore, an extremely significant figure in the push for renewable energy, joins the lawyers in promoting sequestration.

Another argument of the supporters is the refinement of coal, which is increasing the efficiency of coal and lowering emissions whenever coal is burned. Prior to the burning of coal, refining is used to alter the characteristics of the coal, thus making it more environmentally sound.

While these arguments are gaining ground and a few supporters, there seems to be a looming and larger number of people who do not support clean coal technology. They see renewable energy sources as the future, such as wind and solar energy, because of their environmental and economical potential.

The decommissioning of coal-fired power plants has already begun, due to reports that show these plants emit higher concentrations of carbon emissions. This has been deemed as "phasing out" coal.

SIUC has its own coal-fired power plant. It has been controversial among local environmental groups and the growing number who see coal as a thing of the past.

Various coal moratoriums have called for actions such as phasing out coal, hoping to rid coal as a major energy producer if the industry fails to become more environmentally beneficial.

Mountaintop removal mining, revealing the coal buried within mountains, has shown to have detrimental effects on surrounding communities and the environment. The practice has also revealed much biodiversity and pollution in surrounding water.

One of the biggest arguments against coal is its cost. While coal may be cheaper than other natural resources, many see it as too expensive when compared to renewable energy. According to Green, the economic potential of coal has all but disappeared.

"To be blunt, coal has only short term gain. The future cost of coal is astronomical. It is the main constituent of global warming and must be the first to go," Green said. "Coal will eventually become the most expensive energy around."

In the end, the overwhelming evidence shows the economic and environmental potential of green technologies may be too much for clean coal technology to overcome.

Information Beans: The Future of Coal Part 1

The Jackson County Coal Company started one of the first coal mines in the midwest, which ran along the Big Muddy River. That was in 1822.

The company no longer exists and is merely known by Carbondale historians.

The Carbondale Coal and Coke Company was more notable to Jackson County, starting operations in 1872. The coal was produced in Carterville but sold in Carbondale for home heating or the production of steam for industrial purposes.

Back then, the mines in Carterville were an important source of jobs and a huge part of the Carbondale economy. In 1882, the Illinois Bureau of Labor statistics said the mines were "the only ones of importance now in active operation in the county."

Today, the Williamson Coal Company exists in Carterville. The only other two running coal mining operations in Jackson County are the Coulterville Coal Company and Knighthawl Coal, located in Coulterville and Chester.

Coal has a high carbon content, which is how Carbondale got its name. In the 1800s and beyond for many years, the town relied on coal passing through their railroads and stores to keep their economy afloat. Even today, Carbondale and surrounding communities have a certain reliance on coal, due to the coal-fired power plant located next to McAndrew Stadium.

So what if coal production dies? What does that mean for our economy and job market?

To bring the argument home, one major factor could be the savior for Illinois coal: gasificiation.

One of the major downfalls of Illinois coal is its unusually high levels of sulfur content. The high sulfur content has led to the shut-down of many coal-fired power plants because the sulfur content of coal is enhanced when burned.

However, John Mead, the director of the Coal Research Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, says gasification can be utilized to turn Illinois coal's high sulfur content into a postitive factor. He discussed gasification in an article by Perspectives, a research center for the university.

"Gasification is very attractive for Illinois coal because the high sulfur content is not a disincentive," Mead said. "It is actually a useful byproduct."

The gasification process neither contains nor emits greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide from coal. The waste that results from gasifitication can be beneficial; it can be used for such things as feedstock for animals and is readily available for the market.

"To increase the use of Illinois coal, the challenge is to identify new coal technologies. Sulfur dioxide control technologies are in limited use in Illinois, and so it's not a matter of providing incremental improvements," Mead says. "That's not going to radically increase the use of Illinois coal. Commercializing gasification is going to."

This issue gained some ground at SIUC last year when talks of a gasification plant on campus were in place. The plan, however, failed due to high costs, which were estimated at $1.5 billion.

The new plant was attractive because it was more environmentally friendly and it would produce energy for surrounding communities at a cheaper price than the current power plant. Estimates even showed that the building would create over 2,000 jobs for its construction.

Gasification is a new technology and has not had any fine-tuning; it is too expensive at the moment and requires more research to make it more cost-effective.

In an article by the Daily Egyptian, Andrea Wallace, a member of the Student Environmental Center, expressed her relief that the new plant's fallout.

"I think this will give (the Student Environmental Center) and students a chance to work with them in creating more renewable energy options on campus," Wallace said.

But to understand how coal is being affected in Carbondale, it must first be studied on a national and state level.

The most notable effort by the federal government to improve America's air quality was the Clean Air Act. While the CAA was enacted in 1970, it was revamped in recent years as reports showed environmental concerns were worse than expected.

The original purpose of the act was to limit emissions from industrial factories, but it did not take full force until 1990. This was when amendments were made to the act to give the government more authority and control over toxic air pollutants.

Carbon emissions are a concern with coal production, part of the reason why so many are against the aging technology.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which was formed one year after the CAA, established the Advanced Coal Technology Work Group in 2006.

After more amendments were placed to the CAA in 2004, the CAA Advisory Committee gave the ACT Work Group a mission to research advanced coal technologies and what their effect would be on the economy, environment, and state and regional developments.

Their report came out in January of 2008, which consisted of thirteen recommendations to increase production of advanced coal technologies.

Such programs as this have encouraged coal research at a state level, notably in Illinois.

The Illinois Clean Coal Institute was established in 1982 and is dedicated to keeping the production of coal a major energy producer. Their goal is to make coal more environmentally and economically sound while issuing outside contractors to research and develop new coal technologies.

The ICCI has acknowledged that increased carbon emissions have had negative effects on global climate change. Their mission statement is to control these emissions through coal beds, carbon recycling, and sequestration.

All of these efforts have been made to save the dying technology, which has been denounced by many environmental advocates as a thing of the past.

The Illinois Coal Association has reported declining numbers over the past 14 years. From 1995 to 2007, over 2,000 mine employees lost their jobs and the number of operating mines went from 28 to 17. In addition, while 64,000 tons of coal was produced in 1995, the number was down to about 32,000 in 2007.

The ICA also reports over 12,000 Illinois citizens are dependent on the coal industry, with most of those jobs being occupied in southern Illinois.