Exelon’s Quad Cities power plant is moving closer to shutting down.
The company announced Thursday it’s moving forward with closing the facility in Cordova in 2018.
Exelon officials say this comes after legislation did not pass the Illinois General Assembly.
Right now, officials say they’re taking about four steps.
Those include, canceling projects and outage planning.
The two plants combine to employ about 1,500 people.
State leaders say they’re working to keep the plants from shutting down.
“I’m extremely upset about this. I’ve been focused on this for quite a while,” said Rauner.
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner talked about the power plant closures during his trip to the Quad Cities Thursday.
Rauner says he’s working with Exelon leaders to keep the plants in Cordova and Clinton, Illinois up and running.
“We need to protect good paying jobs. Exelon has good paying jobs. I want to protect those jobs. I want to keep them. I want to keep those plants open. We also have to balance that with protecting our rate payers and our tax payers,” said Rauner.
Exelon managers say legislation that would have saved the plants, did not pass the Illinois legislature.
The Governor says democrats are making it hard to find a solution.
“Super majority Democrats have said both publicly and privately that they don’t want to do any reforms, they don’t want to do any changes. The don’t want to do any tough decisions until after the election. We’re going to keep working to try to do the best we can. Matter of fact, I’m talking again with some of the Exelon officials later today,” said Rauner.
Illinois Representative Mike Smiddy of Port Byron, says that’s not true.
He says he’s working with another lawmaker who lives near the Clinton plant.
“We’re both going to be working very hard to try to come up with a compromise in Springfield in a bipartisan manner, and to see what we can do to insure that those jobs stay here,” said Smiddy.
Lawmakers will be back in session next week.
Smiddy says he hopes to find a solution in the next month.
One that changes the minds of Exelon leaders…
“We want to make sure that they have the opportunity sooner rather than later to take a look and maybe reverse their decision,” said Smiddy.
Right now, the plant in Cordova is set to close on June 1, 2018.
Exelon says more than 4,000 people across the state would be impacted directly or indirectly, by the closures.
