Indiana's 2024 Legislative Session came to a close late in the evening of March 8th, with the House adjourning sine die first, around 8:45 p.m. and the Senate following shortly thereafter. During the three months of legislative proceedings, 751 separate pieces of legislation were filed including 297 Senate bills and 454 House bills. CAC tracked more than 90 bills and testified more than 16 times on legislation affecting Hoosier ratepayers. And while only few of those bills became law, CAC’s advocacy continued into the waning hours of the legislative session, where we safeguarded consumers, especially on the large omnibus bills that escape transparency.

This year 2024 marks CAC’s 50th year advocating on behalf of Hoosiers regarding energy policy, utility reform, healthcare, pollution prevention, and family farms. We are proud to be Indiana's oldest and largest consumer and environmental advocacy organization. Since our inception in 1974, we've helped to save Hoosiers more than $10 billion in excess utility charges.

This session, CAC members from each corner of Indiana weighed in on critical legislation that stands to increase our costs at home, whether by electric, gas, or water bills. CAC supporters sent more than 33,000 messages to their elected officials - making an incredible impact on the process, that would otherwise show consumers the door. 

Our staff at the Statehouse is our Executive Director, Kerwin Olson, and our Organizer, Lindsay Haake. Also appearing from time to time is Bryce Gustafson. Our entire staff supports our work at the legislature, with staff providing subject matter expertise as topics arise in Committees. 

Election Law 

House Enrolled Act 1264 was a bill that claimed to be about "election security" but actually risks preventing lawful residents from casting a ballot. Indiana already struggles with voter turnout. In 2022, we were 50th out of 51 for voter turnout, and in 2020, we ranked 46th in the nation. The Indiana General Assembly could pursue any number of policies designed to increase voter turnout: extending polling hours, making mail-in voting accessible to a larger population, or supporting automatic voter registration. We testified in opposition to HB1264 and stated our concerns about Indiana’s already terrible, undemocratic election law policy that does nothing to help voters and everything to discourage participation. 

Our colleagues at Common Cause Indiana warned that HB1264 allows the state to contract with credit bureaus and other commercial entities to conduct voter list maintenance, putting personal financial data at risk. Perhaps most concerning is that HB1264 will make it harder for nonpartisan organizations to conduct grassroots voter registration drives because of a requirement that will require documentation about place of residence, which will be difficult for some new voters to provide. 

Good Governance

In the final days of the legislature, we learned that House Enrolled Act 1338 was being changed to further weaken our public access laws. Despite bipartisan concerns in the Statehouse and pressure from multiple organizations and the press, HB1338 passed the legislature and was signed by Governor Eric Holcomb.

Our colleagues at Common Cause Indiana summarized HB1338 best: The Public Access Counselor is the one place that the public can go to get expert advice when they run up against public officials who won’t govern openly and transparently. HB1338 will only hamstring their ability to serve as an impartial referee for open and transparent government in the Hoosier state. 

Climate protection

We championed the following bills that were not enacted into law but continued our calls to action on signature consumer protection issues.

Senate Bill 278 was written by the late Sen. Jean Breaux (D-Indianapolis), who sadly passed away in April after a long illness. Sen. Breaux was a strong consumer advocate in the Indiana Legislature, and she leaves a long legacy of consumer-friendly legislation for which future legislators may draw. State Sen. David Vinzant (D-Hobart) carried SB278 in Sen. Breaux’s absence. SB278 was a strong consumer protection bill that would have reduced utility disconnections in the heat of summer, eliminated disconnections on Fridays, certain holidays, and weekends, and prohibited monopoly utilities from imposing outrageous fees on customers struggling to make ends meet. It also would have helped monitor the affordability crisis facing Hoosiers by requiring utilities to report critical data, like the number of households they disconnect and aggregated customer arrearage data.

House Bill 1193, authored by Rep. Carey Hamilton (D-Indianapolis) would have authorized independent community solar in Indiana, which would help more Hoosiers save money with cheap and clean solar energy. Right now, community solar is nonexistent in Indiana for customers of an investor-owned utility because our current laws only allow the electric utilities to own and operate community solar facilities. HB1193 would have given customers more choice by allowing customers of investor-owned electric utilities to subscribe to independently-owned and operated community solar facilities to receive credits on their monthly bills. 

LEAP Distict 

Senate Bill 249 and House Bill 1305 were companion bills introduced in response to public concern about the massive amounts of water the IEDC plans to pipe to the controversial LEAP district. These bills create a permitting process at the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to manage large water withdrawals and transfers and give the public a chance to participate in this process. Neither bill received a hearing this year.

Carbon Storage and Sequestration (CCS) 

Senate Bill 131 was a response to the explosion of proposed carbon capture & sequestration (CCS) projects in Indiana. When a company wants to transport and store carbon dioxide (CO2) in a different county from where the CO2 was captured, SB131 would have required that company to receive approval from the county where they want to store, or sequester, the CO2. This bill would have applied to all proposed CCS projects in Indiana except for the controversial Wabash Valley Resources project in West Terre Haute.  

We supported House Utilities Chairman Ed Soliday’s bill which provides the IURC flexibility for the location of required public field hearing in a base rate case. The bill also provides additional authority to the Office of Energy Development to certify Indiana communities as a “solar ready” or “wind ready” community. House Enrolled Act 1278 was signed by the Governor. 

We worked together with water policy colleagues to fight House Bill 1383, which further deregulates Indiana wetlands. We’ve been part of a large coalition of organizations that originally banded together in 2021 to fight harmful wetlands legislation. House Environmental Affairs Chairman Alan Morrison (R-Brazil) authored HB1383 at the behest of the Indiana Homebuilders Association and other special interests.

Sadly, our state legislators fast tracked HB1383, and it was signed into law by Gov. Holcomb on 2/12/24, before most bills were even heard by the committees in their second houses.

Senate Bill 5 became law, continuing the work to protect Hoosier health by accelerating the replacement of harmful lead service lines.

Together with a broad coalition of public health and public transit advocates, Hoosiers secured a victory for mass transit. After months’ worth of of public pressure, House Speaker Huston reached an agreement with Indianapolis and IndyGo officials and killed SB52, which would have compromised mass transit in our state, and usurped the will of Indy voters.

After receiving a deluge of emails, Sen. Rick Niemeyer (D-Lowell) killed HB1399, legislation that preempted regulation of harmful “forever chemicals” also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), by refusing to hold a vote on it in committee. This legislation will most likely make its way back to the legislature next year. 

These victories are not possible without your support. Your time and dedication to these issues is critical to consumers and we cannot work without your support. Thank you for your continued advocacy as we monitor the work of the interim legislative study committees. 

Despite the worsening climate crisis, our disappearing wetlands, and early onset of air quality action days, there will be no environmental topics discussed by interim study committees at the Indiana Legislature. 

Respectfully submitted,

Kerwin Olson & Lindsay Haake