Bailey, Pritzker face off in agriculture forum with accusations of lies
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[August 25, 2022]
By JERRY NOWICKI
Capitol News Illinois
jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com
LEXINGTON – The candidates for Illinois
governor faced questioning about their agriculture-related policies
Wednesday in an outbuilding on a McLean County farm.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s message was one of optimism, billing himself as the
state’s “chief marketer.” His challenger, state Sen. Darren Bailey, a
Republican from Xenia, told the room full of farmers that Illinois was
in a “dire situation” that needed the “grit of a farmer” to rectify it.
The Illinois Agricultural Legislative Roundtable – put together by a
coalition of more than 100 of the state’s agriculture stakeholders –
took place at Schuler Farms in rural Lexington. The event was moderated
by Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr.
Pritzker highlighted his administration’s wide-ranging infrastructure
bill, defended his signature on a massive decarbonization bill and
highlighted the progress toward fiscal stability the state has seen in
his time in office.
Bailey, meanwhile, sought to discredit the state’s fiscal progress,
dismissed the energy bill as a collection of “virtue signals” and said
Illinois was starting to look like Baghdad.
The last comment came in reference to the Climate and Equitable Jobs
Act, signed into law by Pritzker last year, which aims to put 1 million
electric vehicles on state roads by 2030 and take carbon-emitting energy
generators offline in the state by 2045.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Aug/25/images/ads/current/2022%20Business%20Directory%20Cover%20lda%202022.png)
The law seeks to accomplish that by massive ratepayer subsidies for
renewable and nuclear energy and forced closure of fossil fuel plants
over the next two decades.
Bailey said that law has led to a threat of brownouts in areas of
downstate Illinois that are part of the MISO regional transmission
organization that purchases energy capacity for 15 states. MISO
representatives, however, testified at a committee hearing earlier this
year that the early retirement of out-of-state fossil fuel plants, not
the passage of CEJA, led to higher downstate energy prices and warnings
of potential brownouts.
“JB Pritzker’s energy policies are a little more than impractical virtue
signals and cannot succeed with the speed of his promises,” he said. “We
all want a clear plan, but JB has bet the farm, he's bet our farms, and
he's thrown snake eyes every time.”
Pritzker pointed the finger for higher downstate energy prices at MISO.
“MISO has fallen down on the job,” he said. “That's why Illinois had to
pick up the pace in solar and wind and make sure that we're producing
more energy, not less. That is what the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act
does. It helps us produce more energy.”
It was also in relation to the energy bill that Pritzker accused Bailey
of lying to members of the forum about one of the provisions in the bill
that the Illinois Farm Bureau had hotly contested.
The point of contention had to do with eminent domain, a process that
allows governments to procure private property while giving the property
owner little power other than to negotiate a price.
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![](../images/082522PIX/news_a5.jpg)
Republican gubernatorial candidate state
Sen. Darren Bailey, of Xenia, talks during a legislative roundtable
Wednesday on a McLean County farm near Lexington. The event was
moderated by Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr.
(right). (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Aug/25/images/ads/current/graue_22SILVERADO_061822.png)
While the climate bill was ultimately stripped of provisions that would
have given counties the power to invoke eminent domain for wind and
solar projects, the final bill did include a provision that allows a
private transmission line to invoke the authority in seven counties.
Democratic lawmakers at the time said the language, included on page 673
of the public act, applies to the Grain Belt Express, a transmission
line owned by the private company Invenergy. The language in the bill
states that a project of Grain Belt’s magnitude “shall be deemed” a
public use line, giving the company the ability to invoke eminent domain
if needed.
The counties named in the bill are Pike, Scott, Greene, Macoupin,
Montgomery, Christian, Shelby, Cumberland and Clark.
While Bailey said he believed the bill forced coal and natural gas
offline too early, the eminent domain provision was enough for him to
vote against it.
Pritzker, in his discussion at the forum, incorrectly claimed any
eminent domain language was stricken from the bill. Asked by a reporter
after the forum about the Grain Belt Express provision, Pritzker said he
was “talking about eminent domain broadly.”
“What I heard was eminent domain, and that really got taken out of the
CEJA at the very last day,” he said.
Invenergy, meanwhile, has held town halls and said eminent domain would
be a last resort with the vast majority of their interactions with
property owners ending amicably.
While the energy bill was a major topic of conversation, candidates also
discussed a number of other issues, from agriculture subsidies to
broadband availability in rural areas to infrastructure.
Pritzker continued to tout the $45 billion capital infrastructure bill
that includes money for broadband infrastructure and all modes of
transportation. It’s a program Bailey opposed while in the General
Assembly.
“We're going to be building our roads and our bridges, and our airports,
and our ports all across the state of Illinois so you can more easily
get your goods to market across the board,” Pritzker said. “Take note
that the majority of the dollars that we're putting into infrastructure
are invested downstate.”
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jul/22/images/ads/current/rohlfs_lda_072017.png)
Bailey, meanwhile, continued to assert that state finances can be
improved with “zero-based budgeting,” a concept of justifying every
dollar spent up front rather than carrying over costs from a previous
budget year.
He said he’d fill government agencies with businesspeople.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news
service covering state government that is distributed to more than 400
newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press
Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |