House rejects property tax-wind farm revisions
<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">The Illinois House has rejected Gov. Rod Blagojevich's revisions to a measure dealing primarily with Cook County property assessments, a move that keeps intact the original legislation and its provisions to establish a statewide method for assessing wind farms for property tax purposes.</font>
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">The House voted 92-19 Wednesday to override the governor's amendatory veto of House Bill 664. If the Senate also votes to override, the measure would become law despite the governor's objections.</font>
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">Blagojevich used his veto authority to recommend changes to the portion of the legislation concerning Cook County assessments. He did not alter the wind-farm sections, but the House had to vote to accept or reject his revisions to the overall bill.</font>
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">The wind farm provisions in HB664 are meant to resolve the inconsistency among Illinois counties about how to assess them. Different methodologies complicate property assessments for wind farms that cross county lines.</font>
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">Under the legislation, a wind farm installed in 2007 would pay a tax of $9,000 per megawatt. That figure would drop slightly each year because of physical depreciation of the wind devices. </font>
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<p class="BODY" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Imperial">If the legislation becomes law, it would expire in 2011 so lawmakers could gauge how well it is working.</font>