// This is a machine generated transcript. Please report any transcription errors to will-help@illinois.edu.

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Brian Mackey: From Illinois Public Media, this is The 21st Show. I'm Brian Mackey, and today is Earth Day, the 56th. It was launched on April 22, 1970.

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Archival Audio: Good evening. On this Earth Day, millions of Americans in the communities which dot this map have taken the first step to survival. But if this day of teach-ins, mock funerals, rallies, marches, speeches and songs does not convince enough of us that the threat to our life on Earth is clear and present, then we may have cast a vote for death. That's the symbolism in this ecology flag.

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Brian Mackey: This is the beginning of a special report from ABC News. On screen was an image of the ecology flag. It roughly follows the design of the American flag, but with a Greek letter theta in the corner. There are 13 stripes, but these are green and white. ABC's Frank Reynolds explained the symbolism.

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Archival Audio: The term ecology confirms again that the Greeks had a word for everything. The Greek word oikos means house. Ecology is the study of our earthly house, our environment. This ecology flag contains the Greek letter theta, once used as a vote for death in judging one man's fate. At stake now is every man's fate, whether his air will be pure, symbolized by the white stripes, whether his land will be unspoiled, symbolized by the green stripes.

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Brian Mackey: The ecology flag was seen across America on Earth Day, including at Lanphier High School in Springfield, Illinois. That's where a science teacher named Ray Bruzan had turned room 308 into an environmental action center during that school year. The flag was sewn by the mother of one of Ray's students, and they carried it in a procession to the Illinois State Capitol Building on Earth Day, 1970. Today, that flag is in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

The Lanphier students were making one of thousands of demonstrations across the country that spring day, 1970. In the years that followed, the federal government created the EPA, strengthened the Clean Air Act and passed the Clean Water Act. For a long time, protecting the environment was something Democrats and Republicans seemed to agree upon. But that era is now in sharp tension with the present age. The Trump administration has moved to dismantle many of those foundational protections, including an attempt to revoke the legal underpinning for all federal greenhouse gas regulation. Meanwhile, here in Illinois, Democratic leaders are pursuing their own clean energy policies and fighting the federal government in court to do it.

We want to hear what you think at 800-222-9455. What does Earth Day mean to you this year? Are you more or less hopeful about the environment than you were a year ago? And what do you see as the most urgent environmental challenge facing Illinois right now? 800-222-9455 is the number to join us.

Joining me now to talk through some of what Illinois is facing are two of our leading environmental advocates. Jennifer Walling is executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council and Jack Darin is director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. Welcome to both of you and, and Jen, I'll start with you. It's 56 years since the original Earth Day. What's the state of the environment in Illinois today?

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Jennifer Walling: Yeah, thank you so much for having us on today. You know, we're celebrating Earth Day 2025 today. I think that the state of [environment Illinois] is a mix. We're having some real progress, but we're facing some really significant pressure. We've made some of the most significant clean energy gains in the country. We have a governor that leads the nation on climate, but we're facing new challenges that are moving incredibly fast. While we're stepping up on clean energy, jobs, air quality, and we're seeing cities step up too, we're just seeing huge new energy demand and it's really having an impact. None of these things are abstract. We're talking about our utility bills, the air we're breathing and the share of [communal] pollution that communities have. So it's a real challenge and, um, but we're seeing progress and pressure.

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Brian Mackey: Jack Darin with the Sierra Club, same question to you. What do you assess, or how do you assess the state of Illinois' environment right now?

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Jack Darin: Happy Earth Day. It's great to be on. You know, if you look simply at the facts, actually our environment's doing a lot better than it was a half century ago, right? But that's because we're reaping the benefits of policies that have been made by previous generations of leaders and investments that have been made over decades, and these things do take time sometimes to pay off, but once we start to lose them, it can really be very difficult to recover from what we've gained. So that's why it is so alarming, as Jen said. We see, you know, so many of the bedrock, not only the laws, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and those safeguards, but the people and the agencies that implement them and protect us all being just rapidly diminished and on the chopping block. So we're doing OK because of what [previous] generations have done, and Illinois [has] still really become a national leader on many of these issues which we're very grateful for. But I really hope we don't end up back in 1970 again and starting from that stage of environmental quality to sort of relaunch [a] generational change. We need to [be] very careful first to protect what we've already won and keep moving forward, and as Jen said in Illinois, we're able to do that, but in much of the country, [that's] not the picture.

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Brian Mackey: Of course, the air and water in Illinois do not stay in Illinois or [are] not exclusive to here. Jen, let's talk about what's happening with the federal government because it moved earlier this year to revoke, um, well, one of the many things it's done is to revoke the endangerment finding. What does that mean? What is that? And what does it mean for Illinois?

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Jennifer Walling: Yeah, the endangerment finding was established by US EPA in 2009 and it's under the Clean Air Act. And it is the legal basis, the central basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas pollution. So, removing it means that we eliminate a central federal obligation to limit climate pollution. And this is a huge threat to public health and welfare. It's something that we will feel in Illinois directly, including removing standards on greenhouse gas from power plants, vehicles and industrial sources. We're going to see emissions rise nationally. And even [Illinois] is not going to be in a place that can protect us from this. We're already experiencing the consequences of climate change, like extreme weather, flooding, rising temperatures, and this is gonna be something that accelerates those impacts. It also means not just climate change pollution, but the other pollution that goes with many of these sources like particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide. If we weaken these climate rules, coal and gas plants tend to operate more frequently, meaning there are more of these pollutants [emitted], and this is gonna affect our air quality, contribute to health issues, especially in marginalized communities that already have [industrial] pollution. And it's also going to impact our economy in that, you know, we have strong state policies on clean energy and it's going to set some of those things back. And so the endangerment finding is really concerning, and it's coupled with all of these things at the federal government like proposals that just slash and burn our Environmental Protection Agency and the programs that we're doing there. It's really a concern and we're working to fight back.

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Brian Mackey: Jack, this really speaks to the sort of [inaction] by Congress on environmental matters for a long time now. Because you have from administration to administration, Democratic to Republican, you know, Democrats pass or enact through administrative rules, these stricter regulations and then Republicans roll them back. Whether it's designated national parks or the endangerment finding we were talking about. Can you just talk about how [has] Congress responded to environmental concerns in the past couple of decades?

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Jack Darin: Yeah, it's, it really is, it's been mostly gridlock and then big breakthroughs have been the exception, right? We had the Inflation Reduction Act in the Biden administration was a big exception, one of the biggest investment in clean energy and climate action ever by any government in the world. But generally it has been up to the states to be the laboratory. Now this endangerment finding is in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, that was the last big bipartisan pro-environment action that was led by President Bush the first, and that, as Jen just described, that has been the underpinning since Congress hasn't taken its own action for acting on a regulatory basis. So we're incredibly fortunate here in Illinois. That with the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, we did pass a landmark statute on climate that says that by mid-century we will be free of fossil fuels from our electric sector. But Congress hasn't set a similar goal for the country legislatively, which is what the endangerment finding was trying to get at, acting on the scientific urgency, and it's going to be very interesting to see where it goes because the [second] Bush administration was ordered basically to enact the endangerment finding by the Supreme Court. And so when this eventually ends up in the Supreme Court, it'd be very interesting to see how Trump's Supreme Court appointees deal with a rule that [the] previous Supreme Court ordered to be enacted.

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Brian Mackey: Let me remind listeners, this is The 21st Show. It's Earth Day 2025. We're talking about that with Jack Darin, chapter director at the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club, and Jennifer Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. If you want to join us today, 800-222-9455 is the number. [Jen], can you talk about Illinois's response, specifically the legal response? The attorney general joined a multi-state coalition suing to block the repeal of this greenhouse gas regulation from the federal government. How do you assess that legal challenge?

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Jennifer Walling: Yeah, I think we're really pleased to have the attorney general having stepped up on the endangerment finding. There's also a piece from Environmental Law and Policy Center bringing in a number of the Midwestern states, and I think that there's going to be an effort to show how different individuals and organizations in Illinois and the Midwest have been impacted by the repeal of the endangerment finding. It's going to be a discussion about health and costs. And as Jack discussed a little bit [with] the Supreme Court and, you know, the previous decisions that have taken place, it's going to be a really interesting legal challenge that in all fairness should end up on our side in keeping the endangerment finding in place, but we don't know what this court will do based on the precedent, so. It'll bring up Illinois's [unique] impacts to Illinois that will happen because of the endangerment finding into our economy, our public health, our welfare, but I can't predict what's gonna happen.

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Brian Mackey: Well, there are other things happening at the federal government, and Jack, one of those is the federal EPA has proposed eliminating mandatory greenhouse gas reporting requirements for power plants and industry. What does that mean for environmental enforcement when that data is no longer available?

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Jack Darin: Yeah, I mean, and the same goes really across, so the state and the federal government have basically since the first Earth Day had a partnership where the federal government sets kind of like a baseline level of protection that everyone in America enjoys and the states oftentimes will ensure how that is enforced in our communities locally and in many cases go beyond those federal minimums where it's needed and justified by the local conditions. But also a lot of the things that the state is able to do is based on federal data, whether it's greenhouse gas emissions reporting like you said, but also, you know, monitoring networks in our rivers and streams that are measuring pollution. There are less of those than there were. Those have been steadily eroding. Scientists in the field, we have long relied on US EPA to lead the way on toxics, testing, monitoring regulations, and so. As the federal government increasingly disappears from this long partnership, states are going to have to find new ways to step up. We're no longer going to be able to count on the primary mission of the Illinois EPA, for example, to be just implementing standards, data and science that the federal government provides for us, and that's going to be a big culture shift for the agency, and it will require more resources in the long run. We have seen Illinois EPA [been] rebuilding during the Pritzker administration gradually. That trend is going to have to continue, and [it] may [be] in an era of scarcity as we see the federal government targeting Illinois financially in other program areas.

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Brian Mackey: All right, let's go to the phones at 800-222-9455. We have Michael calling in from rural DeKalb County. Michael, thank you for calling in.

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Michael: Hi there. Thank you for having me.

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Brian Mackey: So I understand you want to talk about farmers.

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Michael: Yes, farming has an immense effect upon our water and our air, and I want to just congratulate the farmers. Particularly here in DeKalb County who are moving more towards sustainable agriculture. Organic farming. And whether they're doing it for economic reasons because the cost of inputs, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides keep rising [or] for ecological reasons. Either way it's making a positive impact on our environment. So I just want to congratulate those many farmers who are starting to move in the right direction.

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Brian Mackey: All right, Michael, thank you for the call. Appreciate that. And yeah, thank you farmers. As the barn says on the side of the interstate that I drive past many times. We are gonna continue this conversation on Earth Day 2025. We're talking with Jennifer Walling, executive director [of] the Illinois Environmental Council and Jack [Darin], chapter director at Sierra Club Illinois for an update on the state of the environment and environmental law and policy as we are in the [second] year of the Trump administration, the [eighth] year of the Pritzker administration. Those two administrations are very much in tension when it comes to environmental policy. We'll continue this discussion after a short break. If you want to join us, 800-222-9455. This is The 21st Show.

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Brian Mackey: It's The 21st Show. I'm Brian Mackey. 56 years ago today, Americans marked the first Earth Day with demonstrations from coast to coast. The day was in part the idea of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin. He outlined what was at stake in a speech that day, April 22, 1970, at Indiana University.

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Senator Gaylord Nelson: When we talk about the environment, we're talking about a broad subject. Our goal is an environment of decency and respect for all other human beings and all other living [creatures], an environment without ugliness. Without ghettos, without discrimination, without hunger, without poverty, without war, our goal, our goal is an environment, a decent environment in its broadest and deepest sense, and winning the environmental war is a whole lot tougher challenge by far. Than any other challenge ever faced by mankind. We could terminate our involvement in Laos in 30 days, and we should. And we could stop our involvement in the killings in Vietnam in 120 days, and we should. But wish for it, fight for it, work for it. And commit unlimited resources to it nevertheless. Nevertheless, the battle to restore a proper relationship between man and his [environment] and between man and all other living creatures will require a long sustained political, moral, ethical and financial commitment far beyond any commitment ever made by any society before in the history of the world. Can we do it? Yes. Are we willing? That's the unanswered question.

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Brian Mackey: That was Senator Gaylord Nelson's unanswered question in 1970, and it is still unanswered today. We wanna hear what you think at 800-222-9455. What environmental issue concerns you most right now, right? Clean air, clean water, your energy bill or something else. And how are you thinking about this Earth Day, given everything happening at the federal level? You can also call in with a question for our guests, Jennifer Walling of the Illinois Environmental Council and Jack Darin of the Sierra Club, 800-222-9455. And let's go back to the phones now. We have Glenn calling from Savannah, Illinois. Glenn, thanks for calling in. What's [on your mind]?

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Glenn: [Thank] you. My comment is that the environment and its biodiversity is our life support system. [It's] what's keeping us alive and feeding us and if we don't have the proper respect and regard for the natural world, the natural world will no longer sustain us and I don't understand why this subject is even debatable. You, you can't politicize human survival and the polluting industries [– h]ow would these people expect to enjoy their wealth in a hostile poisoned world[?] That's all I have to say, sir.

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Brian Mackey: Thank you for the call, Glenn. Appreciate it. We also have on the line, Lydia calling from Woodstock. Lydia, thank you for calling in.

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Lydia: Well, thank you for this opportunity. Gaylord Nelson is the most important word. I used to be in Wisconsin as a resident there. I'm familiar with his dynamics. His word was challenge. Listen to that word. Jennifer used challenge. That's the word, OK? It's not crises. The media is manipulating everything with the word crises, crises, crises attached to everything on the table. You don't solve problems with the word crises, and data, [data are] nothing but what you say [they are], and the only way this is solved is by putting it on the table and saying, I'm going to commit, and a commitment is a promise made into reality. And don't you believe those young people know that this is just a big scam driven by data driven. Knowledge that has been put on the top as a reference of problem solving and Gaylord [Nelson] put it best when he used the word challenge. [Put that on] and use that word over and over and over again because I have also participated. I held a seminar for children at [MCC] College. In 1992, but we've been going down the drain and it's not better, it's worse than it was back then. Thank you.

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Brian Mackey: Lydia. Thank you so much for calling in. I appreciate that and I was going to talk about this a little later in the conversation, but maybe [it's], maybe we can get into it now since you brought it up. Jennifer Walling, right? [G]lobal warming, climate change, you know, there's this idea out there. I think it was the philosopher Timothy Morton who coined the term [hyperobject, describing] these problems that are so large in scope. You call it a crisis enough times people get despondent, maybe they think they can't do anything. [H]ow do you recommend people, you know, view this as something that is manageable, something that is within our grasp?

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Jennifer Walling: I think it's important for people to understand that we have the policy solution for all of these big problems. We know how to solve it, whether it's something [like] lead service lines or climate change, we know what the solutions are. We just need the political will to do it. So the actual problem, the actual challenge in front of us is getting our decision makers to make the right choices and move in the right direction. [A]nd they're not just going to do it because we're right. We have all the great facts and the science. They're going to do it because we've built power together and groups like the Sierra Club are doing such important work with grassroots people in different communities to build up that power and demand of our lawmakers that they need to do the right thing. You know, we're always working to make sure that there's the incentive to vote for the environment and there's accountability when [folks] are voting against the environment. And so, I know we have those solutions in front of us, and the real challenge is political will.

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Brian Mackey: Jack, what do you think about that?

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Jack Darin: Yeah, well, the caller talked about data several times and what strikes me is that, you know, folks like [Jen] and I who are in policy rooms a lot, [we're] used to being able to trust data, right? Oftentimes we can confront power or difficult choices with the facts. And for most of my career, that's been very effective, right? Facts don't lie. But one of the most troubling things not only about the environment but all the issues that we face is that we're normalizing lying about facts and I don't think that has any easy answers other than a collective response. [W]hether it's coming from a desire to protect the environment or whatever else you care about, I think we can't lose sight of the facts that we do need to trust the data.

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Brian Mackey: Well, as we were talking about before the break, facts [are] going to be in shorter supply given some of the actions that the federal government has taken. But let's turn now to where the state is. Jen, you referenced CEJA earlier for people who aren't steeped in the acronyms of state government. That's the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. That was, I think, 2021. And then just this year we had the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act. I don't know if there's a quick way to pronounce [CARGA]. We need to buy a vowel maybe for that. But how much can state law really compensate for what the feds are undoing?

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Jennifer Walling: Yeah, and that is the [CARGA]. It should have been the SURGE Act. [All] these great acronyms, [although very] fond of POWER Act for the data centers that we've got next. And I do think that Illinois has been standing up to the federal government and that we can shape this. I mean, I've seen some studies [that] say a large percentage of climate change response can be done by state and local municipalities to be able to address climate change that, of course, having the federal government as a partner in solving the problem is enormously helpful, but we can go ahead and do these things and we're seeing tremendous development of solar and wind energy. We're seeing energy efficiency and savings to the state through those programs as well. We're seeing closure of fossil fuel facilities that are polluting the communities where they're located. All of these things are happening and going [forward], but there's still challenges from the federal level. So, interconnection of these renewable energy facilities is a problem and the federal government is lagging behind and there's long wait times for some of the installed facilities. We can try to counteract that with the way that we prioritize projects. We can incentivize that. We can call on our [regional] transmission operators to do the right thing and do better, but there still are ways the federal government can hamper the progress that we're having in the state. But we are having huge progress here and it continues despite efforts to cut it down.

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Brian Mackey: Jack, what about this idea that, you know, power bills have gone up, there was a big spike, especially for people in the Ameren territory last year. And some people are pointing the finger of blame at Illinois, you know, renewable energy goals and taking some of these fossil fuel plants offline. What do you say to that?

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Jack Darin: Well, I think that they're ignoring the fact that these price spikes are happening everywhere in the country. In fact, they're more extreme in really big fossil fuel promoting states like Texas, that are having worse of the same problems than Illinois. And I think they're ignoring the fact that the Trump administration is driving up prices both through [the] destabilization of markets through tariffs and military intervention motivated at least in part by trying to prop up fossil fuels and paying fossil fuel plants that were going offline, wanting to go offline, in some cases forcing fossil fuel power plants on our same electric grid to stay open and forcing ratepayers to subsidize them. So those same impacts are being felt by all the states around us, in many cases worse. What's unique about Illinois is that we've got a path out of this mess. We set that path in 2021. Other states don't have a long-term energy, clean energy [plan], and if we stick to it, we'll get out the other side much better than our neighbors, but these are tough times for the whole country, indeed the world right now for energy. And fortunately, Illinois has a plan for the first time in modern history. [S]o we just need to stick to it. That's what [CARGA] we were talking about was all about, making sure we do that in the most affordable way possible. Now we've got to handle the challenge from data centers, but we need to stick to [the] plan and ratepayers and our environment will come out OK.

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Brian Mackey: Well, let's, in the few minutes we have remaining, let's talk about data centers. This is something where there has been action locally in Illinois. In fact, we had a segment on Monday's show about how three different Illinois communities are approaching the question of data centers to welcome them. One, Champaign is saying, let's study this a little more before we open up to that. Jen, tell me about the POWER Act, right? It's before the General Assembly right now. It's aimed at regulating data centers. What would this do?

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Jennifer Walling: Absolutely. It's the Protecting our Water, Energy and Ratepayers Act. This is an incredibly important act to put guardrails on data centers and it looks at three key areas that have several specific requirements, but the first is energy and [an] acronym we like here is bring your own new clean capacity and clean energy or BYONCCE. So we're working to ensure that these facilities when they're coming here are bringing new capacity and that it is clean and if they do that, they're able to get connected more quickly. [T]hey're able to have [an] uninterrupted source of energy more quickly, prioritization over other items. So that energy portion is really important. There's also a piece on communities, so making sure that no community has to sign an NDA so that there's not [a lack of] information about these facilities, looking at environmental justice communities[.] There have been severe impacts in communities because of facilities that have gotten disconnected from the grid, like in Aurora where a facility was disconnected from the grid for three days and the neighbors said it sounded like jet engines and the air was full of particulate matter. So we want to make sure that those things don't happen and that there's a lot of community process. And then the final piece is about water. These data centers use up to 5 million gallons of water a day, and there are ways for them to use much less. So closed loop systems, water reuse[.] Our bill puts into place some things to look at[: w]here is the water coming from? What are you doing with the water? Are you using it efficiently and where do you put it when it's done and what [are] you discharging? So there are a number of [a] lot of very specific requirements, and we're looking at guardrails for data centers that are coming to Illinois.

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Brian Mackey: I don't want to speak too far out of turn, but I do think that the reporters we had on talking about the centers in Joliet and Sangamon County said they were indeed closed loop systems. Jack Darin, just briefly, about a minute and a half left, where are you on this idea of data centers, right? Governor Pritzker was celebrating these things a few years ago, you know, putting out news releases, doing ribbon cuttings, tax incentives. He seems to have gone the other way now as many voters are as well.

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Jack Darin: [We're in league] with Jen. The POWER Act is really our opportunity just like we did for our overall electric sector to pass a model program for the country. [A]nd this is currently a huge threat to our energy and water. It can, if we do it right though, [all] this investment in Illinois, it is happening. And so what we want is for that investment to actually increase the amount of clean energy jobs that we started to build in 2021. So if these new data centers are helping to supply their own power with clean energy, those are all going to be good jobs in storage[,] wind, solar and in many cases, jobs for people that need them most. Good union jobs, but also new economic opportunities for people that need work. So if we don't do that and they're left to their own devices, we're likely to see the state overrun with new fossil fuel investments and lose a lot of the progress that we fought so hard for [five] years ago.

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Brian Mackey: Jack Darin is [the] chapter director of the Sierra Club here in Illinois. Jennifer Walling is executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council. Thank you both so much for joining us today on Earth Day.

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Jack Darin: Happy Earth Day. [G]et outside in the next few days. Enjoy spring.

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Brian Mackey: Good advice. Also, wanna share an email from Sarah in Carbondale. [She] just said, what can an individual do? If you have space, plant natives. All right, thanks for that advice, Sarah. Coming up after the break, we're gonna continue our Earth Day program by talking about balloons. We'll talk with a Girl Scout who is making it one of her missions to change the law in Illinois around balloon releases. We'll have that conversation after a short break. This is The 21st Show.