Judge Determines Illinois Cannot Deny Wte Subsidies

Date: November 21, 2002

Source: News Room

A Cook County Circuit Court judge has ruled that Illinois can no longer deny subsidies for a trio of bond-financed waste-to-energy incinerators in the state. The ruling may allow the incinerators to seek monetary damages against the state and an electric utility. The judge ruled that a 1996 Illinois law that halted the subsidy cannot be retroactively applied to projects that were already under way at the time the law was enacted. The ruling came more than six years after incinerator developers filed their lawsuits challenging the state Legislature's repeal of the Retail Rate Act. The act had enabled incinerators to sell electricity they generated to Commonwealth Edison at a higher-than-market rate. The incinerator developers had largely depended on the higher rates to pay off nearly $500 million of unrated, tax-exempt revenue bonds.

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