Proposals stuck into Ohio's budget bill would allow the burning of trash and even scrap tires to be considered renewable energy - a move that environmentalists say could stunt the development of wind and solar power.

The Republican-dominated Senate has tucked a number of energy amendments into the 3,600-page budget bill to expand the official definition of what is renewable.

The new "renewables" -- materials burned to make electricity -- would include:

• Trash and other solid waste, which by state definition could include "garbage, scrap tires, combustible and noncombustible material, street dirt and debris."

• Methane from abandoned coal mines, which at present can escape into the atmosphere, where it is suspected of causing global warming.

• Pulp liquor, a byproduct of paper-making, which Ohio's sole paper manufacturer, PH Glatfelter Co, of York, Penn., already uses to generate electricity.

But a coalition of green and consumer advocates, including Environment Ohio, the Ohio Consumers' Counsel, the Sierra Club, the Ohio Environmental Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists, oppose the amendments.

Key Senate Republican leaders say the changes may help create jobs and are at least worth talking about. Senior Strickland administration officials say they have concerns about the proposals and are willing to talk about them, but not as part of the budget bill.

In a petition to lawmakers, environmental advocates argue that the changes could crowd out the development of wind and solar projects by making them compete for a valuable financing process.

The reasoning: Under Ohio's renewable energy laws, electric utilities must by 2025 generate 12.5 percent of their power with renewables, or buy "renewable energy credits" from renewable power sources. And that means that power generated by wind, solar and bio-gases would generate revenue two ways -- making electricity and creating credits that the big utilities would have to buy.

The changes proposed in the budget bill "would adversely impact the development of traditional renewable energy sources in Ohio along with the jobs that were promised with them," the coalition argues in a four-page letter.

Sen. Jon Husted, a Republican from Kettering and the former speaker of the House, is behind some of the amendments and aware of all of them.

"I am not necessarily convinced that some of these fall under renewable," he said.

As speaker last year, Husted inserted annual percentage benchmarks into the administration's renewable energy requirements, jump-starting the industry.

Husted said he supports calling solid waste renewable because using it to generate power could save landfill space and boost recycling.

"But you may be eating up space for the renewable energy projects. And these technologies are not as environmentally friendly as wind and solar."