2025 Indiana General Assembly 

We are inching our way towards the legislative halftime with the deadline for bills to receive a hearing — the Committee Report deadline — Monday, the 17th of February (the state of Indiana does not have President’s Day off). Wednesday the 19th is the legislature’s Second Reading deadline, and Thursday the 20th is the Third Reading Deadline. If a bill you’re watching hasn’t received a committee hearing yet, it’s likely dead. That said, the subject matter of the bill and the language itself could be inserted into a germane bill at any time in the second half of the session. 

Many committee chairs announced in their meetings this week that this was their last meeting for the first half of the legislative session. However, the House Utilities meeting on Tuesday was recessed — not adjourned. This procedural detail means that while unlikely, the chairperson of the committee could technically reconvene the meeting before the committee deadline to consider any bills assigned to it. This is of particular note because the committee heard House Bill 1628 for a second time, but did not act on the bill for the second hearing in a row. 

HB1628 is the legislation that completely preempts local control over projects that “involves the siting, construction, or deployment of facilities, equipment, or infrastructure used in the generation, transmission, distribution, or storage of electricity, gases or fluids, or water.” The bill was amended in committee and got even worse, if that’s possible. The amended bill now includes language that effectively blocks the development of utility-scale wind power in Indiana, and could likewise, severely limit investment in utility-scale solar as well. That said, it appears that HB1628 is dead, but the bill's language could very well be resurrected in the second half.  

Rep. Pierce offered a second reading amendment to House Bill 1007 which expands the protections for consumers from the costs of providing electric service to data centers and other large-load customers. Chairman Soliday offered his support of the amendment, and it was adopted by voice vote on the floor.  This was a win for ratepayers, and we owe both Chairman Soliday and Rep. Pierce thanks for making the bill better.

However, CAC remains opposed to HB1007 because of the outrageous tracker for SMR project development costs. The bill passed the House the next day after an extended debate about costs and saddling ratepayers and taxpayers with higher utility bills under the guise of economic development. The controversial bill was covered by the Indiana Capital Chronicle and brought a partisan vote of 67-25.

As a reminder, SB423, and SB424 also put the wallets of Hoosier ratepayers on the hook for “project development costs” related to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), effectively forcing ratepayers to involuntarily finance extremely expensive and risky nuclear projects, even if the utility cancels the project. Read more about the trio of bills here and visit act.citact.org/I45KhgJ to email your state legislators to REJECT these bills!

Last week, we told you about Senate Bill 284, which reduces by half the amount of time that Hoosiers may early vote. SB284 languished on the Senate’s Second Reading calendar this week, with last Thursday’s news that Speaker Todd Huston is fine with how Indiana Election law currently stands regarding early voting and other issues. This will likely be a House vs. Senate showdown issue as we continue towards the end of the legislative session.

As the week came to a close, the House majority was expected to announce their budget proposal, though nothing is public as of this writing.

The Senate Utilities Committee met briefly this week to hear House Concurrent Resolution 3, which has already passed the House and is a nonbinding resolution that has policy implications but does not have the effects of a piece of legislation that alters Indiana statute.

As a policy statement, HCR3 urges the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other entities to effectively support proposals from the Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs) that serve Indiana - MISO and PJM - to allow the incumbent monopoly electric utilities to jump to the front of the very crowded interconnection queue to bring “baseload” resources (fossil gas plants) online to serve the Big Tech oligarchs and their data centers.

We testified with commentary similar to our testimony in the House about grid congestion and once again prioritizing monopolies over competitively priced power. HCR3 passed the committee and will be heard before the full Senate this coming week. 

Also heard in Senate Utilities Committee was Senate Bill 425, legislation which eviscerates local control in areas the bill defines as “energy production zones.” These zones are either abandoned coal mines or existing sites with electric generation facilities of 80MWs or greater. The bill got even worse when a committee amendment was adopted, which removed wind and solar from the eligible technologies to be constructed in an energy production zone, meaning local communities will still be able to block wind and solar projects from being developed. SB425 passed committee 7-3 and will be on Second Reading on Monday in the Senate.

As a steering member of Hoosiers for Responsible Lending, we joined a diverse coalition of partners in opposition to House Bill 1174, an unfortunate expansion of payday lending which passed the House Financial Institutions Committee this week with bipartisan opposition, after being unhelpfully amended. The bill received overwhelming testimony in opposition from faith, consumer advocacy, and nonprofit organizations and the only supporting testimony was from payday lenders themselves. The bill will receive a vote by the full House as early as Monday.

The Senate amended Senate Bill 178, the bill which declared that it is the continuing policy of the state to recognize fossil gas and propane as "clean energy" or "green energy" for purposes of any state or federal program. Sen. Buck's second reading amendment changed the definition of clean energy to include propane, wind energy, solar energy, photovoltaic cells and panels, hydropower, fuel cells, hydrogen, geothermal energy, and nuclear energy. SB178 will be voted upon by the full Senate as early as Monday.

As we have in years past, we supported efforts to improve data privacy — both House Bill 1521 and Senate Bill 33 passed their chambers this week. 

To follow these bills in real time, make sure you follow our social media for an up-to-date detailing of our work at the Indiana Statehouse: Facebook, X and Instagram.

Respectfully Submitted,

The CAC Team