Department of Energy Official Infuriates Illinois Lawmakers

Crain's Chicago Business reports:

A Washington bureaucrat’s disparaging remarks about a scuttled coal plant downstate has a pair of Illinois lawmakers burning.

After the feds nixed a $1.8 billion clean-burning coal plant in Mattoon known as FutureGen last week, an Energy Department official said his agency wasn’t interested in “building Disneyland in some swamp in Illinois.”

Now Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Ill., are demanding an apology from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and questioned whether the official, Undersecretary of Energy C.H. “Bud” Albright, should keep his job. The project would have meant hundreds of jobs in Mattoon, which is part of Mr. Johnson’s district.

“The insulting tone and tenor are uncalled for,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Mr. Bodman. “The nature of these remarks should cause you to seriously reconsider whether or not this man can objectively serve in a post as sensitive as Under Secretary of Energy.”

I guess not everyone is enamored with Illinois.