Dear Friends and Supporters,

ELPC has achieved strong successes in challenging times, demonstrating that smart, strategic legal and policy advocacy can both improve environmental quality and grow the Midwest’s economy. ELPC’s solutions-focused strategies engage diverse partners and seize opportunities to make a fundamental difference in accelerating clean energy development and clean transportation technologies, protecting clean air and clean water, and preserving the Midwest’s special wild and natural places. Our multidisciplinary staff teams of expert public interest attorneys, M.B.A.s, policy advocates and communications specialists, combined with sound science engagement from ELPC’s Science Advisory Council, play to win and know how to get things done—truly making a difference for a better world.

We’re on the cusp of fundamental environmental changes. New solar energy, wind power, battery and lighting technologies can help clean up and transform the electricity sector. The Obama Administration’s landmark Clean Power Plan will, in effect, impose a price on carbon pollution while allowing flexible pollution reduction strategies that can be sculpted for effective solutions in each state.

ELPC’s advocacy led to the nation’s largest-ever investment in high-speed rail, including $2.6 billion for developing the Midwest rail network. Modern, faster, more comfortable new trains are being manufactured in the Midwest, creating jobs and spurring economic growth. The Midwest is a proving ground for the rest of the nation: higher-speed rail is arriving, with ELPC’s leadership.

Innovative car technologies – all-electric vehicles, gas-electric hybrids, fuel cell, CNG and others – combined with better designs and lighter materials are reducing
pollution from the transportation sector while lifestyle and economic changes lead to fewer people driving
cars and fewer vehicle miles traveled.

President Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative has bipartisan support and sustained appropriations, which have largely avoided political squabbling. The projects supported by $1.3 billion of federal funds over the past four years are achieving real results for restoring the Great Lakes ecological system.

This is an exciting and challenging time for ELPC’s Board and Staff to seize these opportunities for environmental quality and economic development progress. We’re proud of ELPC’s accomplishments in helping transform our Midwest home into a cleaner and more vibrant place to live, work and play.

Sincerely,

Howard A. Learner and David Wilhelm
ELPC Executive Director and Board Chair

Protecting the Midwest’s Prairies, Wilderness & Great Lakes

ELPC’s strategic litigation and advocacy campaigns provide our Midwestern conservation colleagues with first-rate legal firepower when necessary to protect treasured natural resources. ELPC public interest attorneys work in both the federal and state courts, and in the court of public opinion, to protect the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and the Midwest’s special natural areas, threatened species and wildlife habitats. ELPC establishes key legal precedents that protect our natural heritage now and for the future.

Protecting the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie – Challenging the Proposed Illiana Tollway. Midewin is our country’s first national tallgrass prairie and is home to northeastern Illinois’ largest, most diverse community of grassland birds. ELPC and our clients Openlands, Midewin Heritage Association and Sierra Club are challenging the boondoggle Illiana Tollway, which threatens the Midewin Prairie and wildlife habitat with damaging noise, light and pollution from convoys of heavy trucks. ELPC’s federal and state court litigation, combined with our media and public education campaign, has exposed the financial folly of the Illiana Tollway and its destructive impacts on the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. In October, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning Board again voted overwhelmingly against adding the Illiana Tollway to the regional plan. The Illiana Tollway is now the hottest transportation battle in Illinois.

Defending the Sylvania National Wilderness Area. Sylvania is a beautiful 18,327-acre wilderness area with quiet connected lakes and old-growth trees on the Wisconsin-Michigan border. ELPC attorneys, representing Friends of Sylvania, Sylvania Wilderness Cabins, and the Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition won a major victory in federal district court to finally limit “grandfathered” polluting and noisy gas-powered motorboat use along the Sylvania Wilderness. This ELPC litigation victory is a key precedent for protecting our Wilderness Areas, National Forests, and National Lakeshores in the North Woods and Upper Great Lakes. We’re protecting the Sylvania Wilderness against invasive species and preserving wilderness tranquility for people to enjoy in this special place.

Stopping the SS Badger from Dumping Toxic Coal Ash in Lake Michigan. ELPC and our colleagues are working with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and others to stop the coal-burning SS Badger, a Lake-Michigan ferry boat, from dumping about 1 million pounds of toxic coal ash into Lake Michigan each year. In 2013, the SS Badger’s owner agreed with the US EPA to reduce coal ash dumping in 2014 and completely stop by 2015. The SS Badger’s owner now claims to have installed digital combustion controls that lower fuel consumption, and, next summer, will store the coal ash on board. ELPC will work to ensure that the SS Badger stops dumping into the Great Lakes.

Protecting the Great Lakes from Aging Oil Pipelines. Every day, Enbridge’s decaying, 60-year-old “Line 5” pipeline carries over 20 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas fluid under the Straits of Mackinac, which connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. In 2010, another Enbridge pipeline spilled more than 875,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. That spill created an ecological disaster that is still being cleaned up today. ELPC is working with the Michigan Land Use Institute, Michigan Environmental Council, FLOW and other partners to require Enbridge to remove, replace or upgrade its pipeline to protect the vulnerable Straits of Mackinac. We are gaining support from policymakers to take needed protective action.

Leading the Midwest’s Clean Energy Transformation

Disruptive solar energy and battery technologies and sustained advances in energy efficiency are poised to transform the electricity sector like wireless and the internet transformed telecommunications. ELPC advocates new policies to drive energy markets and technological innovations that can change the world.

Growing Renewable Energy in the Heartland. Wind power development is driving manufacturing jobs, rural economic development and pollution reduction. Iowa leads the nation, generating 28% of its electricity from wind power. Chicago has 14 global and North American wind power corporate headquarters. Wind power equipment supply chain businesses create jobs across the Midwest. Solar technologies keep advancing and PV panels drop in price, while energy efficiency advances in appliances, lighting and buildings save us money and reduce pollution.

ELPC’s solutions-based advocacy accelerates clean energy through an “innovate and replicate” model in which new policies — including updating standards for more solar on the grid in Illinois and new solar approaches in Minnesota — can be replicated in more states to drive markets, reduce barriers, and advance clean energy across the Midwest.

Expanding Energy Efficiency Programs. LED lights save 90% more energy than incandescent bulbs. In Illinois, ELPC steered new programs to accelerate market penetration of LED lights and home weatherization to produce longer-term, deeper energy savings. In Iowa, ELPC persuaded a utility to increase discounted LED lights from 2% to more than 40% by 2018, thereby avoiding more than 45 million pounds of CO2 pollution. ELPC’s sustained advocacy to accelerate energy efficiency in the Midwest will save consumers money on their utility bills, reduce the need for polluting power plants, and lighten the load on the electricity grid thereby improving reliability. A key indicator of market change: American Electric Power told the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio that it expects electricity demand to decrease by 16% over the next ten years.

Solar is Poised for Breakthrough Success. ELPC’s advocacy leadership is advancing breakthrough policies and removing barriers to solar energy development. ELPC persuaded the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to adopt an innovative “value of solar tariff” to recognize the multiple economic and social benefits of solar. ELPC is working with Illinois policymakers to update standards that will make solar easier to finance and connect to the grid. ELPC attorneys won a nationally precedential case before the Iowa Supreme Court to remove utility-sponsored regulatory barriers against a conventional financing mechanism used to support solar installations on public buildings, homes and business.

ELPC attorneys and a diverse coalition of solar power and energy efficiency businesses, RENEW, AARP, low-income consumer groups, and municipalities are fighting back before the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin against three Wisconsin utilities seeking to raise fixed charges and impose costly regulatory barriers to advancing solar energy and energy efficiency innovations. We need to win before the Comission and in the court of public opinion.

ELPC designed Illinois’ new $30 million solar procurement program, and we are working to create more sustainable cities by developing old industrial brownfields into solar “brightfields” that generate clean energy, create jobs and spur economic revitalization. ELPC’s multidisciplinary team of energy experts works on multiple fronts to accelerate Midwest leadership to a cleaner energy future.

Advancing Midwest Leadership for Climate Change Solutions

The Midwest is the center of our nation’s carbon pollution problems and should be the fulcrum for clean energy and clean transportation solutions. ELPC is working to speed development of clean wind power and solar energy resources, implement policies to advance energy efficiency, and accelerate hybrids, electric vehicles and other modern clean car technologies combined with better planning. These climate change solutions are good for job creation, good for economic growth and good for our environment and public health.

Achieving the Full Potential of the Clean Power Plan. President Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan advances climate solutions leadership. The U.S. EPA is finalizing strong federal carbon pollution reduction standards in 2015 that will use Midwest states’ implementation plans to clean up the Midwest’s electricity sector. Supportive policies, improved technologies and changes in business and public attitudes and actions are driving clean energy from early adopters to the mainstream, with more wind power development, more solar energy installations and more efficient LED lighting, appliances, HVAC, pumps and motors. Electricity demand is declining while the Midwest economy is rebounding, and renewables and natural gas are squeezing out old coal plants and reducing carbon pollution. ELPC’s framework strategy Repowering the Midwest is moving from policy vision to reality.

Accelerating the Next Generation of Sustainable Transportation

Advancing Midwest High-Speed Rail Development. ELPC’s sustained advocacy to advance the Chicago-hubbed Midwest high-speed rail network is achieving major progress with bipartisan political and business, labor and civic support. By late 2015, we expect 110 mph modern rail service on 75% – 80% of the Chicago–St. Louis corridor, and soon after on the Chicago-Detroit corridor. Modern passenger railcars manufactured in Rochelle, Illinois are on track by early 2016. Minnesota continues planning for high speed rail projects as well. Key federal transportation legislation is a priority for Congress in 2015, and ELPC is working closely with the pivotal Midwest delegation to expand funding for high-speed rail development that improves mobility, reduces pollution, creates jobs and spurs economic growth.

Reducing Harmful Diesel Pollution. ELPC and our community partners challenged increased diesel pollution from Norfolk Southern’s rail yard expansion in Chicago’s Englewood community. ELPC’s legal and policy advocacy combined with community organizing, public engagement and media attention brought Norfolk Southern to the negotiating table. The settlement will reduce particulate pollution from diesel rail equipment and trucks, add neighborhood green space, and bring new jobs and economic growth.

Promoting Electric Vehicles. ELPC business and policy specialists are working to expand electric vehicle market penetration by removing barriers and advancing supportive policies. ELPC is partnering with the City of Chicago and leading businesses to promote workplace charging policies and infrastructure. By developing the policies to create workplace and home charging opportunities, electric vehicles can be used by more people, expanding capacity for businesses to operate large-scale green fleets.

 You may also download a PDF of our year-end brochure here.