// a href = ./ //

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. Energy Department has announced it is going ahead with phase two of central Illinois' FutureGen clean-coal project.

In announcing the agreement with FutureGen Industrial Alliance on Monday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the department is committed to demonstrating carbon capture and storage technologies.

The FutureGen Industrial Alliance is a group of coal and power companies planning to refit a coal-powered power plant in Meredosia with technology that removes carbon dioxide from coal and stores it underground. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas linked to climate change. The project has $1 billion in federal funding.

The alliance and the Energy Department claim the project will help pave the way for other cleaner and more sustainable advanced coal-burning power plants.

Initial plans to build a plant near Mattoon fell through.

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill raising the government's borrowing limit, averting a default and delaying the next clash over the nation's debt until later this year.

The legislation temporarily suspends the $16.4 trillion limit on federal borrowing. Experts say that will allow the government to borrow about $450 billion to meet interest payments and other obligations.

The Senate gave the bill final approval last week and sent it to Obama, who signed it Monday shortly after returning from Minneapolis.

Democrats and Obama had warned that failure to pass the bill could set off financial panic and threaten the economic recovery.

The bill includes a provision attached by House Republicans that temporarily withholds lawmakers' pay in either chamber that fails to produce a budget plan.