Sustainable Springfield

BIG WIN! After *years* of advocacy, the IL General Assembly just passed SB3772, making historic progress for Illinois’ Environmental Justice (EJ) communities.

✅ Now, Illinois will have our first-ever legal framework for putting the needs of EJ communities ahead of big polluters’ agenda.

Here is how this landmark legislation helps our most polluted neighborhoods:

📣 EJ communities are typically low-income communities of color with high concentrations of industry, where air pollution can contribute to 5% of premature deaths and where asthma rates can reach 20% to 30% of children.

📊 SB3772 requires a cumulative impact analysis before new air permits are granted, evaluating the total combined pollution burden rather than looking at one facility in isolation.

🛑 If an assessment shows harmful impacts, the IEPA must consider changes before granting permits, allowing for tougher rules like improved air monitoring, fugitive dust controls, and increased testing.

As Jen Walling, CEO of IEC, put it: "This is a significant and meaningful step forward for communities who simply want clean air to breathe, and our work to secure that basic human right continues. We hope to secure greater protections for more communities in the future and the passage of the Hazel M. Johnson Cumulative Impacts Ordinance in Chicago.”

BIG BIG thank you to our incredible bill sponsors State Representative Lilian Jiménez and State Senator Celina Villanueva! We couldn't have done this without you, of course.

Special s/o to leaders on Governor JB Pritzker team, like Deputy Governor Bria Scudder and former Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell, IEPA Director James Jennings, and their policy teams for getting this done with us.

Solar overtakes fossil fuels on the Texas grid

Solar to overtake coal on Texas grid for the first time ever this year The Trump administration likes to cast renewables as a socialist scam, but solar has soared in the competitive markets of the Lone Star State.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/28052026/environmentalists-oppose-trump-coal-ash-rollbacks/

Environmentalists Turn Out in Force to Oppose Trump Coal Ash Rollbacks - Inside Climate News Proposed new regulations from the EPA would loosen requirements for protecting groundwater near power plants where the toxic residue from burning coal is stored. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calls the changes “commonsense” moves to maintain American energy dominance.

Karen Sanders, Kathleen Campbell and Karen Brockelsby are all members of the Coalition to Stop CO2Pipelines. They have all been contacted by developers about having land they own used for pipelines or Class VI wells.

Republican state senator Steve McClure and Democratic state senator Michael Halpin are co-sponsoring a bill that, if passed, would ban CO2 pipelines from using eminent domain.

Article link in the comments.

Share your thoughts by emailing [email protected].

$9.4 BILLION in utility rate hike requests — in just Q1 2026.

New PowerLines x Ipsos data:
• 77% expect bills to keep climbing
• 64% feel powerless to stop it
• 61% say it’s adding financial stress

📊 Read the full report: https://powerlines.org/new-powerlines-ipsos-poll-finds-a-majority-of-americans-report-rising-utility-bills-as-utilities-file-9-4-billion-in-rate-increase-requests-in-q1-2026/

Electric vehicles aren’t failing.

The market has spoken and there’s no going back now.

Despite all the doom posting, clickbait headlines and fragility among grown men online spreading nonsense…

Global battery electric vehicle sales hit 14 million in 2025, up 27% year-on-year, and is expected to rise again significantly in 2026.

This is despite the removal of incentives, the inclusion of tax, and things like congestion charges now on EVs.

Back in 2015, global BEV sales were around 330,000.

Fast forward just 10 years and we’re talking about 14 MILLION fully electric cars sold in a single year.

People are switching because EVs are cheaper to run, smoother to drive, quieter, quicker and for many drivers, simply make more sense day to day.

Yes, there are still challenges around charging access, misinformation and upfront cost in some markets.

But the idea that EVs are “failing” is only true in the minds of people than need it to.

Wind turbines are recycled, it’s not 2014 anymore.

One of the internet’s favourite anti-renewable myths is “you can’t recycle wind turbines.”

That argument is years out of date, yet the loons still try and use it as some sort of “got ya” to make themselves feel better.

Modern wind turbines are largely recyclable already.

Steel, copper, aluminium and concrete from turbines are routinely recovered and reused.

Even the blades, which used to be the difficult part, are now being recycled into cement, construction materials, playground equipment and industrial products.

Companies are also developing fully recyclable blades, with newer designs already entering the market.

Meanwhile, fossil fuels are burned once and gone forever. Oil spills, air pollution and billions of tonnes of CO2 don’t exactly get “recycled.”

No energy source is impact free, but pretending wind turbines just get dumped in landfill forever simply isn’t true anymore.

Technology moves on.

The myths just haven’t caught up.