The eleventh week of the legislature saw a heightened pace—we testified on four bills, and tracked the progress of Senate Enrolled Act 9, which was fast tracked to benefit Duke Energy and the other Indiana investor-owned utilities. Within the span of a week, SEA9 swung from a bill seeking to provide oversight to utilities to a massive bailout for utilities dealing with their self-imposed coal ash storage problem. Our Ben Inskeep was quoted in the IBJ article about the bill: “Another blank check to utilities and more rate increases to consumers.” The bill was signed less than two hours after the Governor received it, sparking even more outcry. 

Last week’s Indiana Week in Review covered the issue. Make sure you respond to the IWIR poll about whether state leaders are doing enough to address utility bills (hint: the answer is no). 

The State’s new energy plan, House Bill 1007 passed the Senate last Monday. The bill places five considerations into state statute for the state’s energy conversation to include: reliability, affordability, resiliency, stability, and environmental sustainability. The bill awaits a hearing in the House, where they will consider changes made from their original language.

We testified on House Bill 1417, which can be viewed here. HB1417 is a dangerous piece of legislation that will unquestionably lead to unaffordable utility bills for all utility consumers (including electric, gas, water, and wastewater) by significantly eroding IURC authority. The bill will allow utilities to self-approve and book any expenditures they make, and all but guarantees that they will recover those costs from ratepayers in a future rate case, including financing costs and return on investment (profit margin) for those investments. The bill passed the Senate Utilities Committee 8-3 last Thursday and heads to the full Senate for further deliberation this week.

We are still awaiting a hearing for Senate Bill 265 which brings Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding up to date. House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Jeff Thompson (R-Lizton) could schedule the hearing at any time. Amazingly, TANF hasn’t been increased since 1988. SB265 has moved unanimously through the process so far, including a hearing by the House Family, Children, and Human Affairs Committee last week.

House Bill 1421 unfortunately passed the Senate last week. House Bill 1421 gives utilities Construction Work in Progress, or CWIP, for the construction of dirty and expensive fossil-gas power plants. The House author of the bill, Rep. Ed Soliday (R-Valparaiso) will file a concur motion or dissent motion—meaning, he will agree or disagree with changes made by the Senate to the bill. Then the House will vote again on the bill. 

SB176, a bill that increases the threshold for "small" modular nuclear reactors, is still awaiting a concur or dissent motion by its author, Sen. Eric Koch (R-Bedford). As we’ve previously reported, SB176 increases the threshold from 350 to 470 megawatts for CWIP (Construction Work in Progress) eligibility already in state law.

House Bill 1420 has yet to be heard by the Senate. We’ll update you if it’s scheduled. HB1420 would grant utilities what is known as the Right of First Refusal (ROFR) for most transmission projects built in their monopoly service territory. The bill will further undermine competition against monopoly utilities that is essential to controlling electric bills, by effectively blocking competitive bidding on the maintenance, operations, and ownership of highly expensive transmission projects. 

We testified in favor of House Bill 1290 in the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee last week. HB1290 will increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to 12% and recoupled Indiana’s EITC with that of the federal EITC.

In the House Environmental Affairs Committee last week, the Indiana Builders Association took another stab at Indiana wetlands with an unannounced amendment further degrading protections. Senate Bill 414 was amended and passed on party lines and faces further action in the House this week. Contact your State Representative to take action.

In Senate Utilities we testified in favor of Senate Bill 33, which deals with wind turbine and solar panel decommissioning; and we also testified in favor of Senate Bill 390, which is a post cursor to 2022's Senate Bill 411, which set voluntary standards for renewable-friendly siting ordinances at the local level. The legislature chose not to fund the incentive for locals to write the ordinances in SB390 so this bill allows federal dollars to support the locals’ work. We also supported Senate Bill 180, authored by Senate Utilities Chairman, Sen. Eric Koch, which would allow recently acquired distressed wastewater utilities to link a small portion of the costs associated with environmental investments, like wastewater treatment plants, to water customers, with IURC approval. Like SB33 and SB390, SB180 is eligible for further action in the House this week.

We also testified in favor of House Bill 1138 in the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee last week. HB1138 is a follow up bill to Rep. Carolyn Jackson’s (D-Hammond), 2020 Legislative Session House Bill 1265, which is now state law requiring lead testing in schools. Since daycares were not included in the 2020 bill, the sole aim of HB1138 is to include those daycares.

Upcoming This Week

• We are awaiting notifications for committee meetings of our related legislation, specifically House and Senate Utilities Committees. 

Scheduling Note

Deadlines for the end of the legislative session are as follows:

• House Committee Deadline - April 11
• Senate Committee Deadline - April 13
• House 2nd Reading Deadline - April 13
• Senate 2nd Reading Deadline - April 17
• House 3rd Reading Deadline - April 17
• Senate 3rd Reading Deadline - April 18

A Reminder

To follow these bills in real time, make sure you follow us on Twitter. We tweet throughout the week as to the progress of bills we mention in our reports and on the Indiana General Assembly Bill page of our website.

Respectfully Submitted,

Lindsay Haake & Kerwin Olson