Submitted by Illinoisnoki1 on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 08:54

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By Curtis Black, Newstips, Community Media Workshop,  August 04, 2010

Munoz signs on after Congressional Dems fail to limit carbon dioxide and soot.   

Chicago:  A grassroots campaign to win aldermanic support for the Chicago Clean Power Ordinance [scored a big] victory (8/3) when Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) signed on as a co-sponsor.  Munoz' ward is home to Crawford,  one of the city's two aging coal fired plants. 

Meanwhile the other alderman representing a ward containing the other coal plant, Ald. Danny Solis (25th), faced a protest outside a fundraising dinner.

Solis has not endorsed the clean power ordinance, which would raise standards for emissions of carbon dioxide and particulates.

A press conference at 6:30 p.m. (Wednesday, August 4) and a “people’s dinner” outside Alhambra Palace Restaurant, 1240 W. Randolph, will highlight the group’s charge that Solis is “more concerned about his campaign donors than the health of neighborhood residents,” said Jerry Mead of the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization.

To read more on Solis, Click Here

More on the ordinance

The proposed ordinance, introduced by Alderman Joe Moore (49), who recently addressed PDA-Chicago monthly meeting, would make Chicago one of the first U.S. municipalities to regulate soot and carbon dioxide from power plants. 

Before Munoz signed on, the measure’s sponsors grew to more than a dozen aldermen, but didn’t include the two whose wards are home to coal-fired plants. The 22nd Ward’s Ricardo Muñoz said power-plant exhaust was a matter for state and federal regulators.

Muñoz says his mind changed after U.S. Senate Democrats last month dropped their plans to limit carbon-dioxide emissions.

MUNOZ: "I still believe that this should be dealt with at the federal level. But if it can’t be done at the federal level than at least we start here at the city level."  With Munoz, 14 alderman have signed on; 26 are needed for passage.

Alderman Danny Solís’s 25th Ward includes the other coal-fired plant. A Solís aide says the alderman is still studying the proposal.

Mayor Richard Daley’s administration says the city lacks authority over power-plant emissions.

California-based Edison International owns the generators. A Midwest spokesman says it has already spent millions of dollars to cut toxic emissions.