Editorial: Troubling deadline complicates debate over massive energy package

In many ways, it's tempting to support a proposed new energy law simply on the basis of the unusual, perhaps unprecedented, coalition of interests supporting it.

The Future Energy Jobs Bill — technically SB 2814 — is the combined product of two years of collaboration among ComEd, the watchdog Citizens Utility Board and dedicated environmental agencies like the Sierra Club. These groups are more often adversaries than allies, and cooperation like this deserves recognition, at least.

Would that the entire picture were that simple.

The central goal of the Future Energy Jobs Bill is to save about 1,600 current energy jobs at two ComEd nuclear plants in downstate Clinton and Cordova. Together, the plants are losing money at a pace of $800 million a year, and ComEd parent Exelon has announced plans to shut them unless something helps stem the losses. Supporters of SB 2814 note that in addition to the jobs lost at the two plants, another 2,600 employees in support and ancillary businesses would be out of work.

What excites environmentalists, though, are the thousands of potential jobs the bill could create in alternative-energy industries. These, along with incentives to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency make a compelling case to at least consider this approach.

CUB weighs in with a concern that shutting the two nuclear plants could result in an average additional cost to residential consumers of $1.85 a month — compared to less than 25 cents a month if they are saved.

On the whole, it's an intriguing picture. But it's also a complicated one. Making all this happen originally required nearly 450 pages of legalese dropped on the legislature at the beginning of the fall session. Greeted with anxiety about some features in the original plan, supporters revised the bill significantly, but it remains a complex intertwining of rules, promises and demands that leaves open the door for vastly different interpretations of the legislation's impact.

Opponents argue the bill could actually cost 43,000 jobs over the course of its 13-year life and say it puts ratepayers on the hook for saving money-losing nuclear plants that produce surplus electricity. Supporters have credible responses for most criticisms, but the utility says the decision whether to shutter the nuclear plants has to be made in December and with only two days left in the legislative calendar, there simply hasn't been time for a comprehensive public review.

At this point, the arguments seem to favor the legislation, especially when you consider the unusual alliance that produced it. But we'd feel a lot more comfortable supporting it if we were having this discussion after three months of studying the proposal rather than three weeks.