BackTalk

Fracking bill in Illinois still on track

2013-05-28T16:40:15Z

A protester against fracking attends a rally after a House Committee hearing at the Illinois State Capitol on May 21. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Word was going around over the Memorial Day weekend that a bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Illinois was in trouble because it had lost the support of key environmental groups.

Fracking opponents were saying the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council in Illinois were switching their support from the regulatory bill to a two-year moratorium.

]]> But that hasn't happened. The major environmental groups still support the fracking bill, which is a compromise worked out between industry and environmentalists, and which Gov. Pat Quinn says would provide the strongest environmental protections in the nation. (Not that other states have set a particularly high bar.)

The confusion appears to stem from the Sierra Club's recent affirmation of its longtime position that it would prefer a two-year moratorium on fracking, a new combination of technologies that permits extraction of previously inaccessible oil and natural gas. Two major studies will be completed next year that will tell us more about the effects of fracking. One is a large-scale study of health effects in Pennsylvania. The other is a U.S. EPA national assessment of the fracking technology. A moratorium would provide a chance to evaluate the results of those studies before setting Illinois policy.

The problem is that a bill providing for a moratorium is stuck in committee and appears to be going nowhere. Without a moratorium -- and with no regulatory bill -- Illinois could become the home of unregulated fracking. Environmentalists say acecdotal evidence indicates that's already happening.

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Concealed carry passes Ill. House despite top Dem opposition

2013-05-24T18:29:36Z

Gov. Pat Quinn (John White~Sun-Times)

A concealed carry bill that would wipe out all Chicago and Cook County gun laws sailed through the Democrat-controlled Illinois House today by an 85-30 vote, even though it was opposed by many of the state's top Democrats.

Here's what Gov. Pat Quinn said after the vote:

"This legislation is wrong for Illinois.

"It was wrong yesterday in committee, it's wrong today, and it's wrong for the future of public safety in our state.

"The principle of home rule is an important one. As written, this legislation is a massive overreach that would repeal critical gun safety ordinances in Chicago, Cook County, and across Illinois.

"We need strong gun safety laws that protect the people of our state. Instead, this measure puts public safety at risk.

"I will not support this bill and I will work with members of the Illinois Senate to stop it in its tracks."

]]> On Thursday, after a 13-3 House committee vote, Rahm Emanuel's office issued this statement:

"While this bill contains important provisions that we support - including prohibiting concealed weapons on public transportation, and in schools, libraries, and city parks - we cannot support such a broad pre-emption of home rule, which would nullify all city ordinances restricting gun use, and would eliminate our ability to establish any additional restrictions in Chicago in the future.

"But even as we oppose this bill, we are committed to working with the leaders to craft legislation that will continue to enhance the City's ability to combat gun crimes and keep illegal guns off the street."

Here's what Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinckle said Thursday: ""We have consistently stated that Cook County and other densely-populated areas are unique and should be able to craft laws to address the unique circumstances they face."

The bill was put together by Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan.

Read the Sun-Times news story here.

Read a Thursday Sun-Times concealed carry editorial here.

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Keep going, Chicago bd of ed members

2013-05-21T21:23:07Z

Knocking off four of the 54 schools on CPS' closing list is a sign of progress.

But it's only a start.

It's now up to the Chicago Board of Education's six members -- who vote Wednesday on the remaining 50 closures -- to keep whittling down that list.

Late Tuesday, a source told the Sun-Times that Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is dropping four elementary schools from her closure list: Garvey in Washington Heights, Manierre in Old Town, Ericson in East Garfield Park and M. Jackson in Auburn Gresham. She also decided to delay for one year the closure of Canter Middle School in Kenwood and against subjecting Barton School in Auburn Gresham to a reform measure called a turnaround.

The Sun-Times editorial page had highlighted all four of the spared schools, including lengthy editorials on Manierre and Garvey. Those reprieves are well-deserved and encouraging.

But more schools are worth saving.

]]> We published a list on Tuesday of at least 21 schools that should be saved. And, after learning more Tuesday, we feel compelled to urge the board to consider sparing one more: Goodlow School in Englewood.

The parent group Raise Your Hand has made a strong case to stop that closure: shuttering Goodlow and consolidating it with Earle in Englewood presents a triple negative whammy for kids: the merged school is likely to be over-crowded, students will face unsafe conditions as they walk a longer distance to school and it's a move that shifts kids from one low-performing school to another.

Our list of 21 was based on interviews, school visits, feedback from advocacy groups and reports on each school drafted by retired judges who were hired by CPS as independent hearing officials.

The judges opposed 11 closings, recommended against closing two others and raised serious concerns about another 10 closings. One judge also opposed locating another school at Bowen High.

Final decisions on the remaining 50 schools on the closing list are now in the hands of the six board of education members. It's their turn to show they've done their homework.

If they've been listening to parents, advocates and educators, they'll vote to save at least 18 more schools.

Quinn discusses Springfield's concealed carry bills

2013-05-20T17:22:26Z

Gov. Pat Quinn talks with the news media after an address to the City Club of Chicago at Maggiano's Banquets, Monday. l John H. White~Chicago Sun-Times.

Could there be a version of the concealed carry bill so bad Gov. Pat Quinn just won't sign it?

Quinn ducked that question Monday in a meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board, saying, "I would much rather see both houses [of the Legislature] debate the issue."

But the question won't go away, now that an effort led by state Sen. Kwame Raoul came up short of the needed 30 votes Friday (it wasn't even called). The House speaker's staff is drawing up an alternative said to be much closer to the NRA's position, which would allow concealed carry around the state with no provision for limits set by local governments.

]]> Quinn said he made calls Friday on behalf of Raoul's "well-crafted" bill, but it came up one vote short. He said Senate President John Cullerton "is very strongly in favor" of the concepts in the bill.

The U.S. 7th Circuit appeals court has ruled Illinois' ban on concealed carry unconstitutional and set a June 9 deadline for the Legislature to pass a law permitting it.

But some opponents of gun violence are starting to suggest that it would be better to let the deadline go by than to go along with an NRA-favored bill that would have very few limits on concealed carry.

In that case, the issue would be remanded to the district federal court, and home-rule governments such as Chicago and Cook County could pass their own laws limiting where concealed guns could be taken. That could lead to different rules in Illinois' more than 200 home-rule jurisdictions.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan could appeal the 7th Circuit decision, but according to one person involved in the negotiations, that wouldn't stop the clock unless the U.S. Supreme Court took the case. And that court already has declined to take a similar case out of New York.

Meanwhile, the Senate is holding a hearing on a separate bill that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, limiting them to 10 rounds. Families of Newtown victims spent last night in the governor's mansion and were scheduled to testify today in committee.

Pointing out that some Newtown children escaped while the shooter paused to reload, Quinn said of the bill, "We are really going to try to get that done. ... We think that is imperative."

"The first job as governor is public safety," Quinn said. "I am certainly not enthused at all about a bad [concealed carry] bill. Some of the people who are advocating concealed carry, it is concealed weapons on your person in a public place. When you recite that to people in Illinois, the voters who aren't members of this or that group, they are against this big time."

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Nuclear waste plan poses risks for Illinois

2013-05-15T17:54:28Z

A man in a protective suit works next to a locomotive Monday in Wetteren, Belgium, where hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed and exploded last week. Some environmentalists worry about a similar scene in Illinois involving radioactive waste. (Virginie Lefour/AFP/Getty Images)

Back in the 1970s, then-Illinois Attorney General William J. Scott kept vowing he would not let Illinois become the "nuclear dumping ground of the nation."

But a proposal in the U.S. Senate that would create "centralized interim storage" sites for nuclear waste has some environmentalists worried that Illinois could become home to much more radioactive waste and also vulnerable to spilled waste if freights carrying it through the state derail. A discussion draft is open until May 24.

Critics have said the plan would make Illinois the "bulls-eye" for nuclear waste.

]]> The bill grows out of President Barack Obama's blue-ribbon commission on America's nuclear future, which put out its report in January 2012. Centralized interim storage was its main priority. It would be the biggest change in the nation's nuclear waste policy since 1983.

Illinois already has more than 8,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste on the sites of its 14 reactors, 11 of which are still operating.

Environmentalists worry that the CIS concept would create a serious hazard on the nation's roads, railroads and waterways as hazardous nuclear waste is shipped around. For example, barge shipments are proposed on Lake Michigan, which could create a nightmare if one sank. Some of the proposed rail routes go within a quarter-mile of the Art Institute of Chicago. Will the lions out front have to be fitted with lead suits?

Some environmentalists prefer that nuclear waste be kept where it is in "hardened on-site storage."

Now, 75 percent of the waste is kept in pools, but if the water boils or drains away, the waste would catch fire. Every pool nationwide is expected to be full by 2015.

The other 25 pecent is stored in dry casks, which costs more. It costs tens of millions of dollars to build a pad to hold the casks, which themselves cost a couple of million each, according to nuclear waste specialist Kevin Camps of Beyond Nuclear.

The CIS plan would benefit utilities, because once the nuclear waste leaves their sites, it becomes the taxpayers' problem, not theirs.

But moving all the nuclear waste already piled up around the nation to centralized sites would take 25 years. And then, if a final depository is created, it would have to be moved again.

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Why fracking pact is stalled in the Legislature

2013-05-09T21:47:52Z

Outdoor enthusiasts, tourists, climbers and backpackers at Garden of the Gods Wilderness Area near Herod, Ill. Southern Illinoisans have hopes and fears surrounding the high-volume oil and gas drilling that may be starting in the Shawnee National Forest. (Seth Perlman~AP)

UPDATE 11:15 AM MAY 21, 2013: The Illinois House Executive Committee unanimously passed the Hydraulic Fracturing Regulation Act (Senate Bill 1715).

After a year of negotiations over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Illinois, a compromise that could be a model for the nation is snagged over a simple question.

What exactly is fracking, anyway?

]]> Fracking is a new blend of older technologies that accesses previously unavailable oil and natural gas. You could try defining it like pornography: You know it when you see it. But that's not good enough for industry - which wants to ensure traditional drilling isn't suddenly hampered by new regulations - or for environmentalists, who fear some fracking companies might try to dodge new environmental protections by claiming what they are doing isn't fracking after all.

A group of people representing the various sides of the issue is scheduled to meet Friday morning to see if they can hammer out a definition that satisfies everyone.

Everyone thought they had a deal earlier this year after months of discussions among industry, environmentalists, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, labor, staff members for the Senate and House leadership, key legislators and the Illinois attorney general. Gov. Pat Quinn hailed what they came up with as a model for the nation.

Then the operating engineers' union threw a monkey wrench into the deal by insisting on changes that would benefit their members. That's been addressed with a small tax break that encourages frackers to hire Illinois workers.

So now all that remains is to settle the definition of fracking. The issue came up after environmentalists saw language used in Colorado that seemed to open a loophole in Illinois' working definition, which is based on water use.

Other fracking bills introduced in this session would create a moratorium for two years, allowing more research into the environmental and health effects of fracking. But the moratorium doesn't have much momentum in Springfield.

In fact, all the fracking bills have missed deadlines and on paper appear dead for now. But if negotiators can work out a revised deal, enough major players would be behind it to push it through anyway, using the usual legislative tricks.

A solution could come Friday. If not, talks could drag on for a long time.

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Burge torture investigations take a step forward

2013-05-07T20:24:15Z

Former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge departs the federal building in Chicago on May 24, 2010, (Charles Rex Arbogast~AP)

No one wanted to handle the alleged Jon Burge torture cases. Not Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Not the state appellate prosecutor. Not the state's attorneys of 12 counties.

So on Tuesday, Cook County Criminal Courts Chief Judge Paul Biebel Jr., back to Square One, appointed retired Judge Stuart A. Nudelman as special prosecutor to handle the state's side of the cases. If there is a sense of deja vu here, it's because Biebel previously - back in 2009 - also had appointed Nudelman as a special prosecutor in different Burge-related torture cases. (A number of those cases have been disposed of since then.)

But more than 100 men still claim they've been languishing in prison because of statements extracted through torture by former Chicago Police Cmdr. Burge and his Midnight Crew in the 1970s and 1980s. The process of investigating these men's claims, though, had ground to a halt.

Tuesday's ruling will get things moving forward again in two ways.

]]> It will allow the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission to go ahead and investigate additional complaints it has received. The commission already has found five cases in which it concluded torture claims are credible. On May 15, it is scheduled to report its findings on 10 more.

Biebel also set May 21 to begin briefings about the merits of a class action claim led by the MacArthur Justice Center and the People's Law Office. The class action case would wrap Burge cases into a single class-action lawsuit and have evidentiary hearings in every one. Former Gov. James R. Thompson, former U.S. Attorneys Thomas Sullivan and Dan Webb, former Chicago Police Supt. Richard Brzeczek and others support the idea.

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Arboretum's messages for Chicago

2013-04-26T22:04:45Z

The Morton Arboretum had messages for Chicagoans fluttering from downtown trees Friday. The tags are put up volunteers and staff from the arboretum and BMO Harris Bank.

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Privatization oversight ordinance stalls again

2013-04-25T18:50:13Z

Andrew A. Nelles~Sun-Times Media photo

A proposal to add some oversight to city privatization deals was still being kept pretty much out of sight this week.

Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) introduced the Privatization Transparency and Accountability Ordinance last November, but it has languished in Ald. Dick Mell's (33rd) Rules Committee since then.

The ordinance, for which a majority of the City Council members have signed on as co-sponsors, would require a hearing on privatization proposals involving an asset valued at $250,000 or more. It also would require a cost-effectiveness study, competitive bidding and other reforms. The city's disastrous parking meter privatization has provided impetus for such a reform.

But the ordinance wasn't on the Rules Committee agenda Wednesday, and Mell didn't say when it will be placed on the agenda, if ever.

"My belief is there is a desire for it not to go any further," Ald. Sawyer said Wednesday in an interview with WTTW.

Watch the WTTW video here.

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40 "terrible" school shake-up decisions

2013-04-25T18:05:40Z

Parent group Raise Your Hand on Wednesday gave to the Chicago Board of Education details on 40 proposed school shakeups they deem "terrible." These are decisions the group has "considerable concerns over."

RYT isn't endorsing CPS' other school proposed actions (total of 71), just haven't looked closely at all of them yet.

The proposed actions include 54 closures, 11 co-locations (separate schools sharing a building) and six turnarounds (staff and programming replaced but children remain). A board of education vote is set for May 22.

Take a look at their analysis here.

New labor tactic in downtown worker strike

2013-04-24T18:11:51Z

Workers from fast food and retail chains along State Street walk off their jobs Wednesday in a protest for higher wages. | John H. White~Sun-Times

Starting at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, workers walked off the job at about 30 downtown establishments, seeking higher wages. Affected locations included Subway, McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts, Macy's, Sears and Victoria's Secret.

The labor action was conducted by the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago, which was formed Nov. 15. It uses the slogan, "Fight for 15," meaning wages of $15 an hour. Right now, the workers average under $10.

It's a new labor tactic because the workers are not employed by the same company. They don't even work in the same industry.

Whether they can succeed, building up their numbers, remains to be seen.

Illinois' minimum wage now stands at $8.25, a dollar higher than the federal minimum. Some business leaders say raising wages would force businesses to lay off workers or cut their hours.

]]> UPDATE 2:45 P.M. APRIL 24: The Rev. Liz Munoz, associate priest at St. James Cathedral at 65 E. Huron, said several hundred workers went on strike in the area of the Magnificent Mile Wednesday. She said at least two Subways, a Popeye's Chicken and a beauty supply store had to close their doors because they didn't have enough workers.

"It is not organizing like a shop at a particular location, but rather workers in these industries have decided to organize a union where all the companies are being asked to pay a living wage and asked to respect the right of the workers to organize," Munoz said.

A coalition of grass-roots group is supporting the workers, she said, adding that it is the first time this labor tactic has been used in Chicago.

A rally for the workers was scheduled for 4 p.m. at the cathedral.

Read an April 6 Sun-Times editorial about the minimum wage here.

Read an April 24 Sun-Times news story here.

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Why Chicago has stake in saving Mississippi delta

2013-04-23T21:11:53Z

Barricades block flooded Main Street in Grafton, Ill., Monday, near its intersection with Illinois Route 3 along the flooding Mississippi River. (AP Photo/The Telegraph, John Badman)

The erosion of the MIssissippi River delta in Louisiana might not seem like Chicago's problem, but a group of environmentalists was in town last week for The Big River Works leadership forum to argue it is.

Chicago has substantial commercial barge traffic that connects to the Mississippi, and much of the rest of the state uses the river to ship its grain, they said. But rapid erosion of the delta - the largest loss of land on the planet - is threatening New Orleans' port, and if that goes, Illinois will lose significant access to world markets, they said.

]]> "Our interest ... is to connect the lower and upper river and to sort of encourage a constituency of river people because the river is in such a deplorable state," Val Marmillion, managing director of America's WETLAND Foundation, said. "Illinois ... cargo moves down from Illinois and particularly the Chicagoland area and exits south of New Orleans, which is the largest port system in the world."

Mark S. Davis, director and senior research fellow of the Tulane University Law School's Institute on Water Resources, Law and Policy, said numerous competing interests conspire to create conflict in a river system that covers 31 states and two Canadian provinces.

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How to keep water clean? Drink beer

2013-04-22T21:13:18Z

Unhappy how the Clean Water Act has taken it on the chin over the years? For Earth Day, maybe it's time to drown your sorrows.

At least, that's the idea of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has teamed up with 21 craft breweries to get out the word about clean water. Six of the 21 breweries in "Brewers for Clean Water" are in the Chicago area.

The idea is the brainchild of Karen Hobbs, who used to be a Chicago deputy environment commissioner and now does a lot of water policy work for the NRDC. Beermakers rely on clean water (beer is 90 percent water), and something she saw on a craft beer social media site got the beer keg rolling, so to speak. So people will be gathering Monday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Galleria Marchetti, 825 W. Erie Street, Chicago, for an NRDC fund-raiser, tasting beer from Finch's, Flossmoor Station, Goose Island, Half Acre, Revolution, and Wild Onion. Tickets are $50. The Gemini Club will perform.

]]> "There have been some really horrible bills [that would weaken the Clean Water Act] in the last couple of years," said the NRDC's Josh Mogerman. The Obama administration has issued a Commitment to Clean Water, but there's been little legislative progress, the NRDC says.

Could quaffing a craft beer change that? The NRDC wants you to give it a try.

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Council effort to regulate privatization bogs down

2013-04-15T19:15:27Z

The air traffic control tower at Midway Airport, one of Chicago's assets seen as a candidate for privatization. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)

A City Council bid to slow down any privatization deals seems to be getting a slowdown of its own.

Introduced last November by Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), the Privatization Transparency and Accountability Ordinance has been bottled up in Ald. Dick Mell's (33rd) Rules Committee, even though a majority of the City Council members have signed on as co-sponsors.

The ordinance would require a hearing on privatization proposals involving an asset valued at $250,000 or more. It also would require a cost-effectiveness study, competitive bidding and other reforms.

Until now, plans to privatize services or assets have tended to stay under the radar until the last moment, keeping public scrutiny to a minimum.

]]> The ordinance would prevent the city from slipping barely noticed privatization deals into votes on the entire city budget.

Supporters of the idea, including the Better Government Association, Illinois PIRG, AFSME, the League of Women Voters and other groups, would like to see it get moved to another committee, where it would have a chance of getting a hearing and a vote so it could move to the Council floor.

Backers say the ordinance is important because the city remains interested in new privatization deals. The decision to privatize the city's parking meters under former Mayor Richard M. Daley is widely considered a disaster, but no one is ruling out future privatization deals, including for Midway Airport.

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Science, conspiracy theories and Texas Joe

2013-04-10T23:02:58Z

The phrase, useful and perfect, is "motivated reasoning."

That's what psychologists call the depressing refusal of many people to absorb and accept indisputable facts that run counter to what they prefer to believe. You can throw all the proof in the world at them and they'll never buy the theory of evolution. You can pile up the evidence and they'll never accept the reality of global warming.

Case in point from the news Wednesday is Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, who says he doubts the reality of climate change because it doesn't sit quite right with the Great Flood in the bible. Other religious people have found ways to reconcile the two -- the Catholic Church long ago urged the flock to view much of the bible as allegorical -- but not folks like Texas Joe.

A brand new study, reported Wednesday by Gary Marcus in the New Yorker online, shows how science doubters tend to be all of a piece.

]]> "The trends were clear," Marcus writes, summing up the study's results. "The more people believed in free-market ideology, the less they believed in climate science; the more they accepted science in general, the more they accepted the conclusions of climate science; and the more likely they were to be conspiracy theorists, the less likely they were to believe in climate science."

The classic case of "motivated reasoning," Marcus writes, was the disproportionate refusal of smokers in the 1960s to believe the first Surgeon General's report linking cigarettes and cancer. Smokers rationalized like crazy. As do climate change deniers today.

My guess is that we all engage in a little motivated reasoning now and then. That's how a nihilist convinces himself to get out of bed in the morning.

All the more reason to take science seriously -- and teach our kids to do the same -- and not do a Texas Joe and turn our back on reason.