Selected State Reports

State Documents
■  A consumer's Guide to Proceed before the Illinois Commerce Commission office of Consumer Services (May 1979), 55.

The purpose of this pamphet is to help citizen participation in the utility rate change procedures conducted by the commission in addition to the practical steps suggested her Office of Consumer Services also provides official and technical assistance to eligible groups.

Other Documents

■  "Regulating Hospital Facilities Construction: The Illinois Experience, 1975-79," by Charles E. Begley and David C. Colby, Illinois Government Research no. 55 (January 1982), 6 pp. Available from Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois, 1201 W. Nevada, Urbana 61801.

With the establishment of a certificate of need program in 1974, Illinois hoped to "reverse the trends of increasing costs of health care resulting from unnecessary construction." Today it is clear that the program needs a number of specific improvements if it is to reach its full potential. One such move would be the institution of financial incentives to stimulate construction in counties having a deficiency of beds.

■ Alcohol Fuels in Illinois: Prospects and Implications, by Vaman Rao and Norman Walzer, Public Policy Research Institute, Western Illinois University (October 1981), 177 pp.

The large-scale production of ethanol as an alternative source of energy could be quite advantageous to the Illinois economy. This report estimates the increased employment that could result from an expansion of the alcohol fuels industry. It also describes the production of alcohol in general and in Illinois specifically; it suggests that there is no serious conflict between food and fuel supplies from indigenous sources, and discusses gasoline and gasohol demand. One conclusion is that new uses must be found for ethanol to enhance its economic viability.

■  Illinois Economic Outlook 1982, Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1982), 36 pp.

In 1980 Illinois ranked fourth in aggregate personal income but forty-fifth in the 1970 to 1980 growth rate in the area. While retail sales increased at the national level by 7 percent from 1979 to 1980, the increase in Illinois was only 0.9 percent. These gloomy statistics are due in part to the well-known phenomenon called the Sunbelt, but they must be balanced in the public's mind by the equally compelling fact that Illinois has the country's largest repository of bituminous coal reserve and ranks first or second as an exporter of agricultural products. With the help of many similar facts and figures this booklet presents both the bright and the dark side of the state's economic outlook.

Items listed under State Documents have been received by the Documents Unit, Illinois State Library, Springfield, and are usually available from public libraries in the state through interlibrary loan.       —Anna J. Merritt