2025 Week 9 Statehouse Report
After a much-needed week-long break for us advocates in the hallway, the legislature swooped back into action with a meeting of the House Utilities Committee on Tuesday.
We supported SB422, a bill dealing with advanced transmission technologies, which requires utilities to fully consider software or hardware technologies that increase the capacity, efficiency, reliability, or safety of an existing or new electric transmission facility during their integrated resource planning process (IRP). The bill strengthens the IRP process and anything that helps to avoid expensive capital expenditures paid for by ratepayers is a good step forward. SB422 was met with no opposition and passed by the committee a unanimous vote of 12-0.
We also testified in support of SB421, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission’s agency bill. The bill increases the fining authority of the IURC pipeline division and will allow Indiana to match the federal penalties for pipeline violations, thus allowing the state to match the federal government’s enforcement fee schedule. This procedural detail was causing Indiana to lose out on fining revenue. The bill was also passed unanimously by a vote of 12-0.
The House Utilities Committee also heard Senate Bill 457, dealing with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). While we are opposed to CCS generally, we were reassured by the civil penalties added to SB457 and HB1579 (before it died on the House calendar a few weeks ago).
We were shocked when the Department of Natural Resources stated in their testimony before the House Utilities Committee that it was seeking to give itself primacy for issuing Class VI permits for Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). Primacy is the ability for the State of Indiana, rather than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to be the primary authority to grant permits for CCS projects. CAC feels strongly that any discussion about the State seeking primacy should begin with legislative authorization, which apparently the DNR believes is not necessary. Considering last Monday’s (3/3/25) remand of the EPA’s permit previously granted to Wabash Valley Resources, we cautioned the committee that circumventing legislative oversight and usurping the legislature’s role in regulatory dialogue was not the correct path forward.
Coming up this week
While HB1007, which saddles ratepayers and taxpayers with higher utility bills under the guise of economic development, has yet to be scheduled for a hearing, SB424 is scheduled for the next meeting of the House Utilities Committee on Tuesday.
SB423 and SB424 also put the wallets of Hoosier ratepayers on the hook for “project development costs” related to small modular reactor projects (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. Make sure you visit act.citact.org/I45KhgJ to contact legislators and tell them to oppose the terrible trio of trackers for SMRs.
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. We tweet and post throughout the week about the progress of bills we mention in our reports.
Respectfully Submitted,
The CAC Team
