2025 Indiana General Assembly 

CAC is now following more than fifty bills, with the legislative session’s final bills filed Tuesday, though the House budget (House Bill 1001) is yet unreleased. By the end of the week, 1,200 separate pieces of legislation had been filed. Make sure you keep up to date with legislation we’re tracking on our 2025 Indiana General Assembly webpage.

On Tuesday, we attended the first meeting of the House Utilities, Energy, and Telecommunications Committee, which heard House Concurrent Resolution 3, which is a nonbinding resolution that has policy implications but does not have the effects of a piece of legislation that alters Indiana statute. Nevertheless, as a policy statement, HCR3 urges FERC and other entities to effectively support proposals from the 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. CAC expressed concerns about discrimination against renewable resources and competitive energy developers, and the continued idea that only the monopoly utilities can ensure the reliability of the grid. We agree with the large users of power, represented by the Indiana Industrial Energy Consumers, that “utilities are not the only solution to addressing the growing demand” - and that policy answers must also include customers’ ability to self-generate and invest in energy efficiency. The resolution passed the committee by a vote of 9-2 and now moves to the House floor for consideration. 

Thursday brought us the first hearing of the Senate Utilities Committee during the 2025 Legislative Session. We testified on the single bill they heard, Senate Bill 4. We supported the intent of the bill but noted changes should be made to clarify that the LEAP district is not exempted in perpetuity, as the language implies, and to ensure that ratepayers do not bear a disproportionate amount of the costs of a long-haul pipeline to serve primarily a large industrial park or economic development initiative. “CAC believes strongly that the need for the investment should be allocated to the entity— the notable user, if you will…rather than saddling other ratepayers with a pipeline that is not necessarily in service to serve their needs," our Kerwin Olson said during his testimony. Kerwin’s testimony SB4 was included in the coverage by Indiana Public Broadcasting, and the Indiana Capital Chronicle. The bill was held and no vote was taken. 

Week 3 of the legislative session will literally be “nuclear,” and a doozy for consumers. Three separate bills - House Bill 1007, Senate Bill 423, and Senate Bill 424 - will be heard, all which force ratepayers to subsidize extremely expensive and risky SMRs, or small modular nuclear reactors. Egregiously, all three bills will mandate that ratepayers pick up the costs for SMR “project development costs,” even if the utility cancels the SMR project. Additionally, HB1007 also puts Hoosier taxpayers on the hook by providing a generous tax credit for the manufacture of SMRs in Indiana.

HB1007 is a priority bill for the House Republicans. It will be heard this Tuesday, Jan. 21st, at 10:30 a.m. in the House Chamber. In addition to forcing ratepayers and taxpayers to heavily subsidize SMRs, and mandating that ratepayers assume the risk of investment in SMRs, HB1007 will make it more cumbersome and difficult for the utilities to retire dirty and uneconomic coal-fired power plants, and will reduce regulatory oversight of the monopoly utilities when they come before the IURC for approval of new resources to serve “large-load” customers, aka Big Tech’s data centers. CAC strongly opposes HB1007. 

On Thursday, the Senate Utilities Committee will hear Senate Bill 423 and Senate Bill 424 at 9 a.m. in Room 130 of the Statehouse. Like HB1007, both senate bills being heard put captive ratepayers on the hook for “project development costs” related to SMRs, even if those projects are cancelled. Additionally, SB423 establishes the small modular nuclear reactor partnership pilot program, authorizing a utility to partner with multiple entities to petition the IURC for approval of a pilot program to invest in SMRs. CAC opposes both SB423 and SB424. 

Items upcoming this week

• We will update you from both the House and Senate Utility committees this week. Stay tuned to take quick action on these bills!

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Respectfully submitted,

The CAC Team