Last year, many co-op members in Illinois shared their concerns with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the agency’s proposed “Clean Power Plan.” Over one million Americans did the same at Action.coop and TellEPA.com.
While the EPA addressed several co-op concerns in its final rule, the new rule unfortunately still has some serious flaws. We respectfully believe the rule goes outside of U.S. EPA’s authority and could force electric co-ops to close power plants that consumers should be able to rely on for decades to come. Most importantly, without these plants many co-op members will face higher energy bills.
Even though the rule is final, electric cooperatives and others aren’t giving up. NRECA (co-ops’ national trade association), other trade organizations, 26 states, and 39 generation and transmission cooperatives have all filed suit and are asking a federal court to turn back this harmful rule.
For more information about this extremely important issue, and how to stay involved as a member of your local electric co-op and the millions-strong network served by America’s Electric Cooperatives, visit action.coop. 
