Billionaire Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, hardly a tribune of the people, signed one of the nation’s most sweeping green energy bills into law on September 15. Called the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, SB 2408 invests in renewable energy and electric transportation, while making enormous advances in workers’ rights and equity in these sectors. There’s a lot of good news for the future of life on earth. It’s also groundbreaking, for climate policy, in protecting the interests of workers.

This bill came about through the lobbying and organizing of Climate Jobs Illinois (CJI), a coalition of significant labor unions. Pat Devaney, secretary treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO and a leader in CJI, told Jacobin that the group, formed eighteen months ago, aimed to “address climate change while putting the worker at the forefront.”

There’s a lot for an environmentalist — or anyone suffering from terror of the climate apocalypse — to love about this bill. SB 2408 makes Illinois the first coal-producing state — and the first Midwestern state — to commit to a carbon-free future, putting the state on a path to achieve carbon-free power by 2045 and 100 percent clean energy by 2050. The bill shuts down all the state’s fossil fuel plants by 2045.