By Julie Wernau
Tribune reporter
June 3, 2014
President Barack Obama’s announcement Monday that it will be up to states to decide how to enforce his vision for a low-carbon future portends a battle among Illinois’ power giants, with Exelon in a great bargaining position.
“I expect a pretty big fight within all the competing interests,” said Jane Montgomery, a specialist in environmental law at Schiff Hardin LLP in Chicago.
With a power mix that’s split mostly between carbon-heavy coal-fired power plants and carbon-free nuclear power, Illinois is also home to the corporate headquarters of more than a dozen wind companies. Still, none is better positioned under the new rule than Chicago-based Exelon Corp., parent company of Commonwealth Edison. Exelon owns six nuclear plants in Illinois and has threatened to close plants if energy policies don’t go its way.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s aggressive goals of 30 percent greenhouse gas reductions from 2005 levels by 2030 give Exelon a strong hand if the company demands rules that reward its nuclear plants. Closing just one of those plants would set the state back in its goals because the formula that the EPA proposes to calculate state-by-state emissions rates gives the state credit for its nuclear plants.