With only a few more days of committee meetings remaining, calendars quickly filled this past week while committee chairpersons worked to clear their schedules of bills. CAC attended meetings of the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, Senate Utilities Committee, and the House Roads and Transportation Committee last week. This coming Tuesday (2/27/24) is the Committee Report deadline in the House. The Senate’s Committee Report deadline is Thursday (2/29/24). Bills that haven’t passed committees by these dates will die. Of course, no issue is truly dead until the final gavel falls on the 2024 Indiana Legislative Session.

The Senate Environmental Affairs Committee met on Monday to hear House Bill 1399, but held the bill and did not take a vote. This is the bill that you may have seen on the front page of the Indy Star that inadequately attempts to create an Indiana definition of PFAS toxic chemicals that is far too narrow and would exclude many chemicals currently defined as PFAS. If you’ve not contacted your legislators about HB1399 you should immediately. The bill will be heard again this week in Committee and may receive a vote.

Senate Utilities met on Thursday to hear House Bill 1277, the annual broadband bill, and hear and amend House Bill 1278, an agency bill coming from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) and the Office of Energy Development (OED). The IURC is seeking flexibility about where they must hold the statutorily required field hearings in a base rate case proceeding. Current law requires the IURC to hold the field hearing in the largest city within the utility's service territory, which is not necessarily the city and/or county where the utility has the most customers. HB1278 will amend the law so that the IURC can hold field hearings in cities where the utility has the most customers.

The amendment adopted in Committee to HB1278 will provide the OED flexibility around making the finding that a local unit is a solar-ready and/or a wind-ready community for purposes of that local unit being eligible for incentives that may be available to those local units for hosting solar and wind generation facilities. Currently the law requires that for a local unit to be eligible for the incentives, the local unit must have ordinances that mirror or closely follow the guidelines established in Senate Enrolled Act 390 (2023). However, there are many Indiana counties that do not have zoning, and therefore do not pass zoning ordinances. As amended, HB1278 will allow the OED to certify those local units as solar and/or wind ready communities if they have plans to welcome solar and wind development in their counties, even if they do not have an ordinance in place. 

CAC testified in support of HB1278 and did not testify on HB1277. Both bills were moved out of committee and will be heading to the full Senate for possible further amendments and a vote this week.

Throughout this legislative session we’ve supported Senate Bill 5, which aims to accelerate the replacement of customer owned lead service lines. The bill was heard and amended in House Ways and Means this week. While language that was added in the Senate Utilities Committee was removed in Ways and Means the bill’s original intent remains intact and we remain supportive. SB5 moved out of Ways and Means unanimously and is on the House 2nd Reading calendar on Monday, meaning it may be further amended, and may be up for a vote as soon as Tuesday. 

Last week, we testified in support of House Bill 1163 and House Bill 1306. which attempts to streamline the development of electric generation resources by the rural electric cooperatives smaller than 10 MWs, which are generally solar and storage. HB1163 moved out of the Senate unanimously, and heads to the Governor for further action. HB1306 is also heading to the Governor for further action. Initially, HB1306 sought to exempt the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) from providing a live transmission of all publicly noticed hearings. While we were initially opposed to the legislation, the bill was amended on second reading in the House in a way that addressed our concerns. As HB1306 now stands, the IURC would be exempted from live streaming only the hearings which are uncontested and purely ministerial but would be required to live stream all other hearings, so we now support the bill.

We are still following House Bill 1264 which is on the Senate calendar Monday. As a reminder, House Bill 1264 is a bill that claims to be about "election security" that risks preventing lawful residents from being able to cast a ballot. Indiana already struggles with voter turnout. Take action on HB1264 today as it could receive a vote as soon as Tuesday. 

We will be in the House Roads and Transportation Committee on Tuesday as they again hear Senate Bill 52, which will compromise federal funds and improvements for sidewalks, street paving, and ADA accessible ramps. The Committee may discuss and amend the bill. Take action on SB52 today. 

We will continue our monitoring of the House and Senate floors for language that affects consumers.

As always, our most up-to-date information is on our social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

Respectfully Submitted,

Lindsay Haake & Kerwin Olson
Government Affairs