What's the best way to create Illinois coal jobs? Ironically, it's stricter air pollution regulations.

That's hard to believe in Southern Illinois where the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments are widely blamed for closed mines, unemployment and economic hardship. As a friend of mine once said about his small town after watching two decades of economic decay, "If we hadn't existed before, no one would bother to invent us today."

But times are changing. Across Illinois, a new generation of coal plant is being proposed that utilizes a cleaner, more efficient process called coal gasification. Some of these plants would turn coal into fertilizer (Royster-Clark in Jo Daviess County), others would make electricity and methanol (Erora in Christian County) and still others would make electricity and natural gas (Steelhead in Williamson County). The Williamson County plant is expected to create more than 900 construction jobs and more than 500 permanent jobs.

Coal gasification is vastly cleaner than "burning" coal. For example, Peabody's proposed coal plant in Washington County would burn coal using older, more polluting technology. In one year, the Peabody plant will emit more sulfur dioxide than the Williamson gasification plant would in 15 years.

High natural gas prices have spurred these gasification projects, but also important is the expectation that future air regulations will place a premium on ultra-clean coal plants. By ratcheting down emission levels, future more stringent air emissions create "demand" in the electric sector for gasification technology.

But there is an insidious threat to these new gasification projects. It's the Bush Administration's Clear Skies legislation, a program of regulatory rollbacks for existing dirty power plants that masquerades as environmental protection. Clear Skies will allow mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides to be released in unhealthy quantities. It will result in 4,000 avoidable deaths per year compared to just properly enforcing the existing Clean Air Act.

But this legislation is bad for Illinois coal, too. Only 15 percent of the coal used in Illinois is mined in our state. The majority comes from the Western United States. By the Bush Administration's own reckoning, Clear Skies will close up to 11 smaller coal burning units in the state that are among the last to use Illinois coal. They are just too small and old to affordably retrofit with pollution controls. Clear Skies is too weak to force many of the large power plants in our state to install scrubbers that would allow them to burn high sulfur Illinois coal. And if they are too weak to force scrubbers on existing plants, how can Clear Skies drive the demand for ultra clean coal gasification projects?

Senator Barack Obama is in the middle of the debate as a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that is considering Clear Skies.

Obama has expressed a willingness to work with all sides to reach a compromise. As a result, he's among four Republican and Democratic swing votes that will determine what national power plant legislation will look like. Sen. Obama is doing exactly what we need from our new Senator. He's estab-lished himself as a player at the center of the debate that will determine our health and Illinois coal's future.

Unfortunately, being a swing vote in the middle has its price. This week The Southern Illinoisan unfairly suggested that Obama's openness to compromise is aligned with some national ambitions. That's a cheap shot.

It's untrue and smacks of partisan politics.

Clear Skies is bad for the environment and for Illinois coal. The sooner Clear Skies goes away, the sooner real work can begin on legislation that delivers both clean air and growth in Illinois coal jobs.

John Thompson is an environmentalist.