INDIANAPOLIS | A two-year study of the Illiana Expressway has yet to leave the starting block, but angst over the proposed highway was in full stride Tuesday.

Lake County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, D-Schererville, told a legislative panel the Illiana would emaciate northern Lake County, diverting jobs and homeowners farther south and giving the long-proposed Peotone airport a edge against Gary/Chicago International Airport.

"This really doesn't do anything for the tax base of Lake County, and it really doesn't do anything for jobs in Lake County," Scheub said. "As the north end of the county goes, so goes the rest of Lake County."

Legislators challenged Scheub to put some facts behind his rhetoric. That's what lawmakers are trying to accomplish by ordering the Indiana Department of Transportation to conduct a feasibility study of the Illiana, which would connect Interstate 57 in Illinois with Interstate 65 in Lake County.

"You do understand that this is a study to determine the economic benefits (of the proposed highway)?" state Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, asked Scheub.

"The purpose is to get facts, not to make decisions on rumors and hearsay," added state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso.

The panel also heard from LaPorte County Councilman Jerry Cooley, who worried lawmakers would revive Gov. Mitch Daniels' proposal to extend the Illiana east to Interstate 94. Soliday reminded Cooley that Daniels dropped that suggestion and the eastern leg is not part of the current study.

The state has hired Cambridge Systematics, a Massachusetts firm with offices in Chicago, to conduct the Illiana study.

State Sen. Sue Landske, the Cedar Lake Republican who heads the Illiana study oversight panel, said she hopes to schedule a public hearing in the region in December, after the committee receives initial financing estimates. She appeared stunned by the opposition leveled at a mere study still in its infancy.

"We can't pour concrete," Landske said. "We aren't anywhere near that work."