Mattoon official encouraged after FutureGen hearing
David Wortman got his first taste of the nation's capital Thursday – but he wasn't exactly a disinterested tourist.
Wortman, Mattoon's public works director, headed to Washington on his own dime to advocate for building FutureGen in Mattoon. After a Senate subcommittee hearing on the topic, he still feels pretty good about the prospect.
"It (had) hopeful parts and parts that were less hopeful," Wortman said of testimony and comments from senators and officials at the hearing. "Overall, the impression that I got is that there's a lot of people trying to keep this on track."
Thursday was Wortman's only full day there, and he started it at Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin's Thursday morning coffee. Then came the hearing and plenty of discussion about the project with FutureGen Alliance officials.
"I was just really impressed to see how (hard) the alliance and the Illinois delegation (are) working to get this thing put together," Wortman said. "There's still a long way to go, but I feel like our interests are being well-served out here."
Lawrence Pacheco, spokesman for the alliance of 13 international power companies hoping to build the plant in Mattoon, said he believes the hearing went well.
The alliance is encouraged by the discussions that happened at the Senate hearing this morning and there's interest in keeping FutureGen alive, at least until the next administration," Pacheco said.
Angela Griffin, the president of Coles Together, said the response from one of the original site competitors further proves her belief that there's no reason for Mattoon to stray from fighting for the plant it was promised.
"While everyone would expect for Mattoon folks to believe Plan B is ill-conceived and unachieveable," Griffin said, "when the director of economic development for the Odessa (Texas) Chamber of Commerce says applying for Plan B is a 'waste of time,' I think that speaks volumes about the way (the Energy Department's) partners perceive (its) actions."
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