The next Energy Council Quarterly meeting will be on Friday, August 17. Congressman Mike Quigley (IL-5) will be kicking off the meeting and will take questions after. Illinois Commerce Commissioner Ethan Kimbrel will also join us for a meet and greet with council members, which Congressman Quigley will stay a bit for. Commissioner Kimbrel was confirmed by the Senate at the end of session and starts a five-year term with the ICC. Our third and final speaker will be former ICC Chairman Doug Scott, now with the Great Plains Institute, on carbon pricing efforts around the U.S. This presentation will lead into a discussion on potential legislative efforts during veto session and 2019; ideas for legislation we may want to pursue; and legislative outlooks under a potentially different administration. This is a discussion for members only and I encourage members to come ready to discuss.  Please RSVP here .

I will bring donuts.

Working Group 4 has released its draft report. I sent this around to members Friday as well. Please take a look through and let me know if you have any comments. I attempted to highlight areas of importance that members should particularly review, but it is not exhaustive. There may be issues important to individual members that I did not highlight. (Despite all the yellow)

Understand the report will and should have a wide variety of views, and viewpoints came from the discussions, submitted comments (i.e. P3 exercise), papers, etc. In my quick review, however, it appears some sections received a greater amount of attention and assumptions, but a thorough review needs to be conducted. For example, I do not see our views adequately represented. The Working Group will be discussing this report in its next meeting on August 6 ^th. More to come.

Remaining working group sessions for NextGrid will be open to the public. If members are interested in listening in, you can find the meeting location or WebEx information on the  NextGrid's homepage . Each meeting has an opportunity for public comment at the end of the meeting.

Upcoming meetings are listed at the top of the homepage. Click each meeting to view the agenda and login/location information. Further, some working group draft reports are available for view online.

Both have wrapped their sessions as of Tuesday. Working Group 6's last session focused decarbonization efforts. The group received a presentation from the Regulatory Assistance Project on Decarbonization of the Electricity Sector. From there, the session went into breakout groups and discussed the benefits and challenges of implementing a carbon pricing scheme in Illinois.

Challenges raised included how a system would impact different sectors and communities; impact on Illinois' competitiveness; leakage issues - would the benefits really be realized without a regional solution; misuse of revenue; and politics. Benefits included innovation opportunities; and environmental and health benefits.

Acting Commissioner Anastasia Palivos will host a

policy session on September 18 from 1pm to 4pm. The policy session will focus on: " the benefits to transportation electrification, specifically of buses and fleets; the barriers to electrification; U.S. cities leading the charge; and the legal and policy framework models for success across the U.S. and in Illinois ." This event comes after an earlier policy session this year held by Commissioner Palivos on electric vehicles. This policy session is worth noting as it is the second session focused on electric vehicles held by Acting Commissioner Palivos and could indicate a desire to act on this issue by the Commission. What that could look like is not known still.

Mark September 20, 2018 in your calendar to join us at the Hilton Chicago for the 2018 Illinois Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting. This fall Lance Fritz, the chairman, president, and chief executive officer of  Union Pacific Railroad will keynote this exciting event.

Sponsorship opportunities are available. We are seeking an Energy Council sponsor for the pre-event reception. If members are interested, please let me know! We look forward to seeing you there!