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MADISON - ST. CLAIR RECORD

Thursday, March 28, 2024

There's nothing 'clean' about the Clean Jobs Bill

“Clean” and “green.” Those words sound nice, don't they? Good, wholesome, natural.

The problem with nice words like those is that they mean something completely different when the Left gets hold of them and redefines them for the purpose of imposing their will.

What, for instance, is a “clean job” or “clean energy”? All jobs, even the least taxing desk jobs, involve some exertion – and that leaves the job-doers and possibly their work spaces comparatively less clean than when they first embarked on their enterprise.

The development and production of energy is also inherently, if to varying degrees, a dirty business.

If clean is supposed to mean cleaner, that might at least make sense, but then we still have the problem that, more often than not, in the phrase in which it appears it simply isn't true. “Clean this” or “clean that” may be an oxymoron at best, at worst a marketer's or agitator's intentionally misleading slogan.

We're told that wind and solar energy are cleaner than alternatives such as fossil fuels. But we're asked to overlook the reliability issues, grossly higher costs and inefficiencies, not to mention minor details, like carnage to wildlife caused by wind turbines and solar panels.

What, then, are we to make of something called the Illinois Clean Jobs Bill? Can anything “clean” come out of the Illinois legislature?

Supporters claim the bill would reduce electricity usage by 20 percent over the next decade via efficiency improvements in home and workplace, promote wind and solar projects by increasing to 35 percent the amount of power that must come from renewable sources, and establish a state carbon exchange market.

They say it will cut power bills, generate billions in “clean energy” investment, and create tens of thousands of “clean” jobs. Where’s the proof? What are the real costs?

We find those promises hard to credit, but we have no trouble believing that any “clean up” will come at the expense of taxpaying Illinois businesses and homeowners.

 

 

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