Deadlines for committee hearings have come and gone and we’re now two weeks away from sine die, the official adjournment of the Indiana legislature, which is due to occur on or before April 29th. We’re now in a most uncertain time, where any language that’s passed one chamber — and sometimes hasn’t appeared before— can appear in a conference committee report. So we’re keeping careful watch, alongside our colleagues at the Indiana Coalition for Human Services, on all conference committee meetings, whether or not the subject matter deals with consumer, environmental, and/or utility code cites, just to be absolutely sure that consumer unfriendly language isn’t slipped in.

The Senate GOP revealed their budget on Thursday morning as we were sitting in the Senate Utilities hearing on HB1420 (more on that later). The Senate GOP budget removes a provision to accelerate the individual income tax rate cuts previously enacted to lower the rate to 2.9% by 2026 instead of 2029 and failed to include a proposed cigarette tax increase. 

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) bill we’ve been updating you about has unanimously passed the Senate, its final hurdle, and is headed to the Governor. SB265 brings TANF funding up to date. If you can believe it, TANF hasn’t been increased or adjusted since 1988 (coverage here).

House Bill 1138 was passed by the Senate more than a week ago and we’re waiting for the House to vote on its concurrence motion any moment now. 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. 

You may remember, we testified on House Bill 1623 in Senate Committee and have been waiting for the bill to be heard on the Senate floor, with a vote possible as soon as Monday. We remain opposed because of the harmful coal ash language, tucked deep into the administrative rulemaking bill which would restrict the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) from implementing requirements stricter than federal law on Indiana coal plants — specifically coal ash storage ponds. Take action on HB1623 here.  

We testified on House Bill 1420, which passed 6-5 during a hearing on the Committee deadline in the Senate Utilities Committee last Thursday. We worked on the bill extensively with coalition partners, many of whom testified during a packed hearing in the statehouse basement. Watch Kerwin’s testimony about ratepayer impact of HB1420 here. 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. This bill is newsworthy right now because a similar proposal in Iowa was rejected by the Iowa Supreme Court recently.  HB1420 goes to the Senate floor now, for further amendment and may be up for a vote as soon as Tuesday.

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Respectfully Submitted,

Lindsay Haake & Kerwin Olson