RICL? The Rock Island Clean Line project is being praised as a benefit to our local economy. Many people have been told that electric rates will even go down once the project is complete and of the thousands of jobs it will create.

The Clean Line project is a flawed business plan making a few people very wealthy at the expense of many. The plan is to bring mega high-voltage DC lines from collecting stations in western Iowa and Nebraska across hundreds of miles to stations where the power can be converted to useable AC electricity for large populations like Chicago and the Eastern Seaboard. Not one kilowatt can be used along the line itself.

Yes, several hundred people will be trained to construct those huge towers (made in China), but once finished, the jobs are gone. Clean Line has made numerous financial promises to businesses, local government, and landowners in states it must pass through that will ultimately increase the cost of its product and the electricity where supplied.