Illinois Nuke-Plant Exits Poised to Gut Small-Town Budgets (2)

Two Illinois communities are getting a lesson in the dangers of relying too heavily on one taxpayer as Exelon Corp. prepares to close a pair of nuclear power stations next year, eliminating thousands of well-paying jobs and eviscerating local budgets.

Illinois’s largest electric utility announced in August it will close a money-losing plant near Byron next September and its Dresden generating station a hundred miles away two months later. The company blames federal regulators for changing rules and making nuclear power less competitive in the biggest U.S. regional power market that stretches across 13 states. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has ...