Across Illinois, people are making hard decisions about what they can afford and what they cannot. A public works director weighs whether to repave a street or replace a storm drain after another heavy rain. A homeowner opens the mail and braces for an insurance premium increase that pushes a family budget over the edge. These moments are becoming more common, and they point to a system in which families and local governments carry most of the cost of a changing climate, while the companies that helped drive this damage continue to post profits.
That is why I am introducing the Climate Change Superfund Act in the Illinois Senate.
Illinois already spends heavily to maintain infrastructure that was never built to handle the extreme weather we see today. Roads, bridges and sewer systems now need constant repair, and school districts are facing the cost of keeping classrooms safe and usable during long stretches of extreme heat. Every dollar that goes to emergency fixes is a dollar that cannot go to teachers, classroom materials or basic upkeep.
Flooding adds another layer of strain. Illinois averages hundreds of millions of dollars in flood losses annually. In the summer of 2023, parts of Chicago saw nearly 9 inches of rain in a single afternoon, and 1,400 homes reported basement flooding. For many, that meant months of repairs, drained savings and insurance changes that affect property values and local tax bases.
Right now, the costs of climate damage are spread across taxpayers and local budgets alone.
The Climate Superfund proposal would change that. Major fossil fuel producers would contribute to a state fund based on how much pollution they produced in the past. Those dollars would go directly to work that communities can see and use, including stronger stormwater systems, a more reliable power grid, cooling in schools and public buildings, and protection for infrastructure along Lake Michigan’s shoreline.
Because the contributions are tied to past production, not current sales, they cannot simply be tacked onto families’ utility bills. Energy prices are set in global markets, not by what one state decides to do.
Illinois would not be alone. Vermont passed a climate superfund law in May 2024, and New York followed later that year. Dozens of other states are now weighing similar steps.
This comes down to who pays when damage is done. Families and local governments have been covering the cost for years. The Climate Change Superfund Act asks the companies that helped create this problem to take on their share, giving communities something they rarely get — the chance to plan, not just recover.
Illinois has taken on hard problems before, and this is another moment to do it again.
— State Sen. Graciela Guzmán, D-Chicago
Unplugged oil wells’ legacy
Thank you to the Tribune for its investigative reporting on unplugged oil and gas wells in Illinois (“Illinois’ oil crisis,” Jan. 18) and to ClientEarth USA and Northwestern University’s Environmental Advocacy Center for their recent report on the same issue. Together, they have brought long-overdue attention to a crisis that has remained out of sight, out of mind and dangerously out of order.
The Tribune’s enlightening article reminds us that Illinois was once the nation’s third-largest oil producer. Today, thousands of unplugged wells remain scattered across rural Illinois, quietly leaking methane and threatening soil and water. Because they are largely invisible and concentrated in southeastern Illinois, they’ve also been largely ignored — by regulators, lawmakers and even much of the environmental community.
I work for Prairie Rivers Network (PRN), an Illinois environmental nonprofit, where I address legacy coal pollution and help communities navigate the energy transition. Oil and gas rarely come up in conversations about our state’s energy past, present or future. Yet as Illinois charts a path to 100% clean energy, guided by two landmark climate bills passed over the past five years, we must also confront the liabilities left behind by past energy industries. PRN has long advocated for coal ash and abandoned coal mine cleanup, and now, with problems and solutions laid out by the Tribune and the EAC’s report, we can help do the same for oil and gas wells.
The new EAC report “Illinois’ Billion-Dollar Blind Spot” finds that Illinois does not collect individual well production data, cannot reliably identify when wells become inactive, allows operators to delay plugging indefinitely and requires inadequate financial bonding. This “regulatory blindness” makes existing laws unenforceable and burdens taxpayers and rural communities with cleanup costs.
President Joe Biden’s infrastructure law funding provided a temporary infusion of resources to address some abandoned wells. But it is nowhere near enough to clean up the full scope of the problem, and it will not prevent the possible billion-dollar crisis the report warns of.
The Illinois Department of Natural Resources and the legislature should act on the report’s recommendations with actions to strengthen reporting, enforce existing laws, prevent further abandonment of wells and ensure polluters pay for cleanup. Illinois’ oil legacy may be out of sight, but solutions are not out of reach.
— Amanda Pankau, director of energy and community resiliency, Prairie Rivers Network, Champaign
Well-researched reporting
The story about the abandoned oil wells in the Jan. 18 paper by Jonathan Bullington and Adriana Perez was excellent. This is the type of well-researched story that keeps me a subscriber while living far from Chicago and Cook County.
— Dave Hubert, Yorkville
Clarity in wetland regulations
The Jan. 15 editorial “A Supreme Court ruling has put Illinois’ wetlands at risk. Springfield should respond” omits an important perspective from Illinois’ transportation builders.
I write on behalf of the 300 member companies of the Illinois Road & Transportation Builders Association (IRTBA), which design and build the roads, bridges, transit systems, ports and aviation facilities Illinois residents rely on. We work daily under the Clean Water Act and have long complied with environmental requirements while delivering critical infrastructure.
Protecting wetlands and improving transportation are not competing goals. Our industry supports clear, science‑based regulations applied as intended. What concerns us is adding new state‑level uncertainty to an already-evolving federal process in ways that risk regulating features never meant to fall under wetlands law.
For decades, the definition of “Waters of the United States” has shifted across administrations, creating real‑world consequences: features deemed regulated mid-construction, redesigns, delays and cost increases that waste taxpayer dollars. Inconsistent interpretations make it difficult to plan work, price bids or schedule crews.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. EPA clarified — rather than eliminated — federal jurisdiction, reaffirming that Clean Water Act permitting applies to waters with relatively permanent flow and a continuous surface connection to navigable waters. That clarity benefits regulators, environmental specialists, landowners and builders alike. EPA is now updating its rules accordingly.
There has long been agreement that transportation features such as roadside ditches and stormwater controls are engineered systems. Treating them as wetlands would not improve water quality but would slow emergency repairs, delay safety projects and increase taxpayer costs — especially after storms when mobility matters most.
When projects affect regulated waters or wetlands, our members obtain permits and follow mitigation requirements. They are active in their communities and want clean water and healthy ecosystems, along with the ability to deliver transportation improvements that keep people and commerce moving.
Predictability and clarity in our laws are not anti-environment. They are essential to deliver safe, affordable infrastructure for the people of Illinois. Lawmakers should allow the federal process now underway to work and avoid disrupting long-standing, well-understood permitting frameworks that balance environmental protection with the state’s transportation needs.
— Michael Sturino, president and CEO, Illinois Road & Transportation Builders Association
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