"Efforts to clean up one of the largest industrial polluters in Illinois will be delayed until the end of the decade after a state panel voted Thursday to give the owner of a massive downstate power plant more time to slash its lung-damaging emissions."

"The Illinois Pollution Control Board unanimously granted St. Louis-based Ameren a five-year reprieve from cleaning up its plant in Newton, 200 miles south of Chicago.

Faced with increased competition from natural gas plants that have driven electricity prices dramatically lower, the company argued that it cannot afford to upgrade the Newton facility, the largest of its five Illinois coal burners. Doing so would force Ameren to shutter at least two of its other coal plants and lay off hundreds of workers, it said."

Michael Hawthorne reports for the Chicago Tribune September 21, 2012. [2]