By Benjamin Yount

SPRINGFIELD  –  Illinois lawmakers have apparently decided that burning tires is not green energy.

 One day after the Illinois House approved a plan to give green energy credits to a suburban Chicago company, the state Senate scuttled the plan.

Geneva Energy in Ford Heights incinerates tires to fuel its power plant.  Environmentalists say the plant has a history as a polluter, and have been insulted by the idea of classifying tire burning as green.

But state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline — who sponsored the legislation – said there's plenty of double talk already about green energy.

"I [want] to work in these hearings that  I'm about to hold  to find out what is renewable energy," he said.  "But let me tell you what I've found out so far about renewable energy.  It means they want your money, that's what it means."

Geneva Energy wanted to change the definition of reusable energy, another green term, to include tire burning.  If lawmakers had gone along, the company would have then been eligible for thousands of dollars in federal credits. 

Supporters say the new money would have helped provide jobs and opportunity.  But critics, like state Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said adding tire burning as a green energy source would twist the idea of environmentally friendly fuel sources.

"Saying this doesn't do anything other than change a definition, that's exactly what it does.  It changes a very important definition.  It defines the burning of tires of renewable energy….It creates in the definition this sub-category of reusable."

Harmon said lawmakers who agree that burning tires is not the same as a wind farm or solar panels should not support the idea.

The plan fell far short of the required majority on a 17-26 vote, with six lawmakers voting "present."

But Jacobs said even without the tax credits, Geneva Energy is going to burn tires just outside of the city of Chicago.

"These folks have a right to do this.  They are currently doing it, whether or not we're approving them to have an option.  It's an option.  Not a mandate like the wind folks or the solar folks.  It's not that kind of special interest.  It's an option." 

Many downstate lawmakers say they supported the tire burning credit, not because of any environmental concern, but because they want to get rid of the hundreds of thousands of tires littered across the state.  They say those tires are a public health concern during every West Nile virus season, when water collects in the abandoned tires.