Illinois is requiring polluters to begin reporting spills of industrial plastic pellets known as nurdles, a growing source of contamination in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds.
Illinois Environmental Council Releases Annual Scorecard (SPRINGFIELD, IL)—The Illinois Environmental Council (IEC) released its 2026 Legislative Environmental Scorecard today. The scorecard, which is released annually, assigns legislators a percentage score based on how they voted on bills affecting the environment. This year, 58 percent of state house representatives and 46 percent of state senators received
New Report: State Legislators Scored on Environmental Voting Record Read More »
IEC’s state legislative team has published our 2026 Environmental Scorecard evaluating the performance of every Illinois state legislator based on their environmental voting record.
2026 Environmental Scorecard Read More »
Every spring and summer, Chicago basements flood like clockwork, but this isn’t just bad luck with the weather. It is the direct collision of a 1930s sewer network, a rapidly shifting climate, and decades of systemic urban disinvestment. Chicago’s Deep Tunnel project can’t save us alone, we need to embrace water policy and nature-based climate resilience.
Why Does My Street Flood? Read More »
Andrew Montequin for WTTW: Data centers are a hot topic in Illinois and around the country. Alongside more construction comes more public scrutiny — of their economic and environmental impacts, their strain on the electrical grid, and their role in the development of artificial intelligence models. Data centers pack rows upon rows of computer chips
Data Center Policy Debate in Illinois Spans Environmental, Economic Goals Read More »
Explore our IEC and IECEF Annual Report to learn more about the state of our organizations and the progress we made in 2025.
2025 Annual Report Read More »
Quick look at what did and didn’t pass this session.
Capitol Dispatch 6.1.26: That’s a wrap on the 2026 Spring Legislative Session Read More »
Illinois – Today, the Illinois General Assembly adjourned without taking action on the POWER Act (SB4016/HB5513) – commonsense legislation that would enact nation-leading guardrails on data centers. Instead, state lawmakers opted to continue doling out tax dollars to subsidize Big Tech. “The longer state leadership waits to enact the commonsense protections the POWER Act
Stage Now Set for Chicago’s Comprehensive Cumulative Impact Ordinance
IL Legislature Makes Historic Progress on Environmental Justice Policy Read More »
