Indiana has been coal country since well before Indiana was Indiana.

In recent years, though, thanks to a push from the state's publicly regulated utilities, clean and renewable sources of power such as wind, water and the sun have carried an increasing share of the state's energy load.

Some members of the General Assembly have sought to slow Indiana's transition from fossil fuels to renewables, citing concerns about reliability.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll do our best to illuminate the highly charged debate over Hoosiers energy future Indiana lawmakers from the statehouse to your House.

is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

Because of its robust manufacturing sector, Indiana is the ninth most energy intensive state per capita in the nation, using roughly three times more energy than it produces.

While energy policy aims to balance reliability with economic development and environmental sustainability.

These efforts are often at odds with each other.

Increases in energy production can have negative impacts on the environment.

Indiana utilizes several sources of renewable energy, including wind and solar power, which create less pollution than fossil fuels.

Our state ranks 12th, according to the American Clean Power Association for Installed Wind Energy capacity.

Solar energy use is limited, just shy of 1% of all electricity generated in the state, but its use is increasing.

Yet almost half of the energy used in Indiana is still derived from coal mined predominantly in the southwestern part of the state.

In 2023, Indiana consumed 26 million tons of coal, second in the country only to Texas.

In fact, Indiana has such a demand for coal it has to import from neighboring states.

As economic development opportunities have increased the demand for energy.

The impact on the environment has been significant.

Indiana leads the nation in most polluted waterways, with more than 24,000 total miles of rivers and streams listed as impaired, or swimming and recreation.

This trend toward pollution may accelerate as the Trump administration pauses federal funding for clean energy projects in Indiana.

And this uncertainty has halted potential job opportunities and infrastructure development that would have accompanied the expansion of solar energy.

I am pleased to welcome Democratic Representative Alex Burton of Evansville, a member of the House Committee on Utilities, Energy and Telecommunications.

Former state senator Jon Ford, executive director of the Indiana Office of Energy Development.

Kerwin Olson, executive director of Indiana's Citizens Action Coalition and former state representative Matt Bell, lobbyist for Reliable Energy, an advocacy group for the coal industry.

Thank you all for being here.

I guess I would call that the seat of power.

Get it?

seats for my guests.

All right.

I'm going to put up with a few of those today.

Forgive me.

Let's start with you.

Jon Ford, you're now running the office of, Energy Development.

Could you describe, at least as it stood, a lot has happened this week.

But when the week started, could you describe Indiana's energy policy?

Yeah.

Well, thanks, first of all, for having me on the program and bringing this topic up.

It's top of mind of a lot of folks here in Indiana.

But the energy policy is based on the five pillars, some legislation that passed a few years ago.

those five pillars of reliability, affordability, sustainability and environmental impact and, sustainability.

So what the policies focus on those five things.

So trying to make sure that we are hitting those five marks on what we're doing for the future and what we're doing currently.

How does that what the policy should be, those five pillars that covers a lot of territory.

I don't know if they're always applied equally, but.

Certainly, for me and the district that I represent, affordability is top of mind.

And I'm looking forward to working for them with the administration, to make sure that the bills in southwest Indiana, certainly more affordable.

And I'm guessing, Matt Bell, since you represent an organization that has reliable in its name, that is your, crusade.

Absolutely.

Among the five, that would be priority one.

priority one with with affordability being, a close priority to, you know, we think it's critical in Indiana that we have enough power to meet the demands of our economy today.

But not only that, to meet the opportunities that that are in front of us, there are amazing economic development opportunities for the state.

Do we have the power to to to meet those demands?

And we're concerned about that today.

So reliability and grid stability are awfully important to us.

And Kerwin, you've said that in testimony on bills and others that this shouldn't be about economic development.

I mean, if things happen, if investors pay for it, make it various investments.

That's all well and good.

But your concern about a lot of the the implications about these bills that we'll talk about on everyday consumers.

Yeah, I mean certainly the five pillars are appropriate with affordability being top of mind for CAC.

But one of the issues is how are we defining affordability, how are we measuring affordability.

And that's where I think we're failing, because folks are struggling.

We have an affordability crisis not only in Indiana, in this country.

And so we would like to be, you know, see the administration, see the legislature address that bring meaningful changes to where folks can afford their their everyday bills.

I saw some of the recent data that suggests we're 28th in the country, maybe in terms of affordability, but I think we used to be.

Maybe the problem is we used to be the most affordable or one of the most affordable.

So any change is going to be, felt.

Yeah.

Well, I started doing this work almost 20 years ago.

We were, you know, 10th or show in the country in terms of affordability.

Now we're in the the bottom tier.

And, you know, folks are hurting.

Well, let's look at the trends, how we got to this point.

Because again, there's so many crosscurrents in these discussions.

Some of it's about energy.

And then umpteen other things we might address.

But if you look at, the the energy production in this state, coal was king before Indiana was Indiana, certainly.

it fueled economic growth, but up until essentially the 70s or 80s, almost single handedly.

and as recently as what, 15 years ago, we probably saw as much as 88%.

Thereabouts of our net energy production in Indiana coming from coal.

That's down now under 50%.

So that's one trend.

But I have the sense that because of various, moratoriums on on transition from, from coal to other types of reliable or renewable energy and some the brakes have been put on by the lawmakers that if we charted it, it would sort of go one way.

And now we're at an inflection point and maybe heading in other direction.

Is that a fair assessment?

That's a fair assessment.

I think, you know, as we've retired, you know, some would say prematurely retiring, assets here in Indiana, we haven't grown the new energy as fast.

And so it's created this simple supply and demand issue where we're then having to go out in the market and buy more power from the grid.

But at the same time, we're seeing historic demand.

You know, we're seeing demand the last few years that we haven't seen in decades.

And it's, you know, kind of all coming to fruition based around technology.

And of course, the old question that always comes up, you were a former Republican lawmaker yourself.

And the notion that free markets tend to be the best, impetus for directing where these industries should go.

Clearly, this is and maybe it's because it's a regulated market to begin with, with at least those investor owned, publicly, regulated utilities.

But this is not a free market at work here.

Yeah.

Here in Indiana, we have a vertically integrated system.

So we have monopolies that we've created to make sure that, you know, when they were created to make sure we had power and we had investment in power.

And, you know, things have changed a little bit.

And I think now's where we're trying to balance that out, where we can add new technologies, new, forms of energy, but balance, affordability.

And that's really what we're talking about at the General Assembly this session.

You know, you talked about affordability, affordability.

And that's certainly on front of mind for your constituents.

At what cost are is that as long as I'm getting a reasonable bill, everything else is secondary.

Or how where's the push back on the notion that, there should be impediments to the transfer?

If you believe that there should be from coal, for instance, to renewables?

Sure.

we have to make sure that it's reliable, our energy sources, we have to make sure that they're reliable.

And I certainly I want to make sure that, you know, with being a freshman legislator, that I'm coming in and getting brought up to speed in all things related to energy.

but certainly as we go down this pathway, I want to make sure that as energy costs and, you know, as everyone says, we're in this transition period, that we're being cognizant that ratepayers are paying a lot of their, residual income towards a utility bill that is taking away from their medications and, and housing expenses and the things that they want to do with their families.

How fearful should we be about reliability?

Matt Bell, is it a couple of people have talked about it.

It's been in the name of your organization, are we in some precarious position, would you argue as a state?

So I think Indiana has done a lot of meaningful things to keep us from being in a precarious situation.

To their credit, you know, utility leaders in the House and Senate have said, number one, we want to embrace all forms of energy.

secondly, we're going to base our strategy.

We're going to have a strategy, which is something we didn't have in Indiana for for a long time.

They stay.

Out until 2023, I guess, with the formal adoption of the five.

Pillars.

So, so, so they've laid out principles that we have to adhere to nationally.

We have we have a challenge and we hear those warnings every day.

We hear them from the North American Energy Reliable Council.

We hear them from Mike.

So demand is growing faster than supply.

Indiana has done a lot to make sure that when its citizens turn the light switch, the lights come on.

But there's more that we have to do to meet the to meet the opportunities that are in front of us.

There's more that we have to do to ensure that we do that in an affordable way.

So Indiana has positioned itself well.

But yes, there's a real challenge nationally and we can't be immune from that.

Kerwin also, one of the things your organization has identified as problematic is the recruitment of data centers.

They use a lot of energy.

I'm not sure in my brain what a data center is, but I know it uses a lot of energy.

and your organization, in fact, proposed a moratorium, last fall, at least until some of these things stabilize.

Is that the crux of the issue?

If there were a moratorium, which I don't think there's an appetite for that on data centers because of the economic development implications.

Would would we be, okay.

In your mind?

Well, from our perspective, we we lose sight of one thing.

And that's the utilities themselves have an obligation to serve the public, and they're going to position themselves to ensure that they're meeting that legal obligation.

Secondly, we hear about a rising demand.

Well, that rising demand is because of data centers coming to Indiana and the extraordinary amount of both energy and water that those facilities require.

Look at Nipsco, for example, in their most recent integrated resource plan, they said without data centers, we're in good shape.

We can serve our customers with data centers, we're going to need a whole lot of new resources.

So yes, we have rising demand.

But why is that demand rising?

How do we meet that demand?

And more importantly, from our perspective, who should be responsible for the financial implications that that demand brings and meeting that demand with new capacity?

Jon Ford, I'm guessing that the broad administration in your, unit within that administration wouldn't be enthusiastic about saying no to, those entities that are setting up, these high, high dollar, facilities in places like Fort Wayne.

I've heard the Fort Wayne mayor talk about, you know, the implications, positive implications.

Yeah.

Is that just a part of the trade off here?

Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, political leaders in Indiana have been very open.

We want these opportunities here in Indiana.

And it's just not about the opportunity today, but it's opportunity for the future.

Right?

I quantum computing it's not going away.

It's here for the future.

Right.

Our our phones, our watches.

Everything's collecting data and it has to be stored somewhere.

And some might say it's a national security issue that we want those data centers here in America.

And of course, they're going to be in America.

We want them here in Indiana.

Make sense to you, Alex Burton?

Somewhat.

for me, I am, you know, with us being two years into a strategy of energy, as a as a policy person, we have to know where we're going as it relates to.

So I'm thankful that there is a strategy now, but we also need to balance that.

Make sure as we're looking at the future for all Hoosiers, then we're making sure that our utility costs and costs that are coming back on, on our Hoosiers are, more affordable than what they are.

And I think that there is an opportunity.

It's just going to take some intentional efforts and collaborations that go beyond party line, to really just shape the future of what in energy consumption and our future really looks.

Like, you know, is the is this, the strategy that's been in place for a couple of years, is that still viable or valid?

And I say that and I alluded, just after introducing you all to the notion that things have a lot has happened this week.

We at the federal level, we saw Lee Zeldin, the, the head of the EPA, essentially say this is the grandest day in the history of deregulation in our agency.

A former EPA director said it's the worst day in the history of the EPA, proving that it's all in perspective.

But basically a lot of the things that encouraged, the push move toward renewables might be off the table.

Now, granted, these will rulemaking, they were rules in many cases, and they would have to be undone, which is not a snap of the fingers.

But Matt Bell is is the is the old strategy still operative?

And given?

I should point out that the governor on the heels of that announcement said Indiana will follow, the federal lead in terms of not enforcing regulations that are more strenuous than the federal level and also exclude any, you know, thought of, he discussed it or described it as environmental justice in any rulemaking or any decision making by the local, local state officials in this regard.

So is it still operative?

The five, the five pillars, would you say.

The five pillars lay a great foundation for Indiana to move forward?

but absolutely, there's the need to build on that.

You know, before Mr. Zeldin actions yesterday, his historic actions yesterday that are going to lift regulations and they're going to make power more affordable and investment more plausible in the future.

We had, Secretary Wright say that everyone needs to be building to meet demand.

So our energy secretary has said the very same thing.

The Brown administration can really address this issue from the time they were on the campaign trail.

On talking about the need to ensure that Indiana has a reliable grid, and that Hoosiers can afford to pay for the power that they're consuming.

You know, I think their their bold actions, even as we've begun creating a cabinet secretary position to focus on energy, hiring some wonderful folks to run agencies and hiring Jon all speak to his commitment to ensuring that Indiana can lead, can lead economically on the back of a rock solid grid that folks can afford.

So it is a new day.

The five pillars create the foundation that Indiana can build upon, but the leadership of Governor Braun and Secretary General and Director Ford and others is going to be critical for us.

Talk about shout outs, Kerwin Olson.

If this is all a chess game and some people say lawmaking is a negotiation process and negotiation and debate, that the role the game board does get tossed out with this week with the I mean, we used to worry, for instance, there was legislation that would make a natural gas and propane a, or a clean fuel under Indiana statute in hopes of getting federal dollars grants for clean energy programs.

Who's to say there will be even grants for clean energy programs?

I mean, a lot of the landscape just fundamentally has changed, has it not?

Yeah, I think uncertainty is the name of the game right now.

We're seeing things change on a daily basis.

And what does that do to an organization like yours that, Well, it when when you work on issues of sustainability, when you work on issues of affordability and with limited resources, you have to you have to pick your battles, pick your fights, and understand what are the priorities to, you know, achieve the end that we want to see.

But, you know, lifting regulations on coal plants from our perspective is completely inconsistent.

Number one, with affordability, it's expensive coal fired power plants that have driven up costs in Indiana from from our perspective.

And then how does an unregulated coal plant fit into an environmental sustainability box with the havoc that it reaches, that it wreaks both on public health, our environment and our climate?

So we fail to recognize how continuing to operate unregulated, dirty, coal fired power plants fits into those five pillars.

Jon four, can a lack of regulation or a significant deregulation live comfortably with the notion of reliability?

reliability.

And you called it chaos, I believe is or uncertainty.

so, I mean, is can you, can you reconcile uncertainty on one hand and reliability?

I think you can.

And I think, you know, there's bills like 1007 that are going through the legislature right now that are putting guardrails up and providing that consistency that business is looking for, for investment.

Right?

I mean, when we talk about Mars and nuclear, you know, the energy baseload power of the future, you know, we do need to put guardrails up to make sure we're respecting the ratepayers.

And I think that that bill is an attempt to do that.

And let's talk about that.

House bill 1007.

It passed out of the House now in the hands of the Senate.

one person who voted against it and spoke out against it was you, Alex Burton.

what troubled you about the bill?

I think coming into it, the concern, from from those and I represent is the idea that ratepayers could then be responsible for for technology that may not work.

And I think that was the thing that, really draw the concern and threw up the red flag for me, the in which, in fact, someone from, the Evansville area came and testified against that bill.

And that was the thing that really, rose the red flag for me, in which I couldn't support.

1007 and just to clarify this with essentially say that the utilities about which we spoke earlier would be able to offset development costs, even if they the project never came to fruition, they still could take the plunge or explore these, modular nuclear reactors, which, aren't operating anywhere else in the country.

But I guess there's a desire to be among the first here.

It makes sense to you, Matt Bell.

It's a bold vision for Indiana's energy future.

and look, that's going to take investment.

I, you know, and one who believes that more of that investment should be borne by, by, shareholders of investor owned utilities and not by ratepayers.

I hope that the legislature will find a better balance there.

But at the end of the day, encouraging Indiana to incent in technologies of the future that will meet those demands.

And I have to disagree a little bit with my friend Quinn's portrayal of the coal industry.

Our coal industry in Indiana has never been cleaner.

It has never been, safer environmentally.

And it provides the most affordable and reliable bridge to nuclear operating our coal plants, the end of their useful lives, given the investments that have been made and environmental and and safety is absolutely the way that we bridge this affordability and reliability gap.

We live in a state where we have 330 years of coal underneath our underneath the ground, and all of the above strategy has to embrace coal as part of its, it's part of its core foundation.

And in fact, one of the parts of that same bill that we just spoke about that you probably like even more than the nudge toward nuclear power would be, the greater concern on the part of the Utility Regulatory Commission and others, being instructed to look very carefully and about the dismantling of coal facilities and their, transition, if you will, to other forms renewable.

That's I'm guessing that would be the favorite part, of that bill, what's what's wrong with the bill criminalizing.

Well, first of all, that bill probably should be 3 or 4 separate bills because it's a heavy bill with a lot of a lot of issues.

Because the nuclear type of thing does that.

The whole, the transition aspect, some other things that, cover utilities that are making investments and sort of dispatchable, I guess that's the term now, dispatchable energy.

Yeah.

Obviously we object strenuously to the, the, the, the component of the bill dealing with small modular reactors and putting that risk on ratepayers.

That's simply not fair, especially for technology that 20 years ago was ten years away, ten years ago it was ten years away.

Today it's ten years away.

So again, to your point earlier, we're using ratepayers as economic development tools.

you know, helping to subsidize huge corporations.

And that burden really should fall on, on those companies.

Ratepayers pay for service.

Ratepayers shouldn't be held responsible for economic development.

That's responsibility of shareholders.

And I would argue a responsibility potentially of taxpayers, but certainly not ratepayers in a small, service.

Terry, part of the bill is good in the context of promising some protections for customers from these exorbitant costs of data centers, but we just can't get around, that tracker for small modular reactors that puts ratepayers on the hooks and only stands to exacerbate the affordability crisis and provide no contribution to the reliability of our grid.

Considering the technology's not ready.

Well, Jon Ford wouldn't the embrace of this at the state level potentially hurt the coal industry?

I think it's you know, it's a you know, listen, small nuclear reactors are a long time away.

They're, you know, ten, 15 years away.

And Curran makes a good point that, you know, we've talked about it for a while and they haven't come to fruition.

But I think today things are different, right?

I mean, I think the technology, the companies that want these have balance sheets like we've never seen before.

And you know what we're trying to do, I think with this bill, the legislature is trying to say we're open for investment.

We're and it's a starting point to make deals to help get them interested in Indiana, partner with utilities, partner with the state, and come up with a deal that respects ratepayers.

And it's the beginning of that.

And we talk about this small or small modular reactors, this technology, it's in place now.

And I guess running in China and Russia knows nowhere in the United States does.

Should that be a sound.

The alarm bells, Alex Burton I think the, the word that if I had to, have this conversation down to one word, it would be agility.

We have to be thinking in the future.

And where we're going as a relates to energy, but we also have to be cognizant of where our ratepayers, the burden that they currently face.

Right now, we have to keep that top of mind, and I'm looking forward to being a part of the conversations to make sure that as we're talking about the future of energy, we're also being cognizant of Hoosiers who are paying their bills every month.

Bold words from a man who tore his Achilles playing basketball on a legislative game this week.

Agility.

I know you'll get it back.

How about this notion?

Is this too untested, this technology?

Do you think that, Bill.

I don't I think that Indiana is correct, to be pursuing a future that, that that is based on clean nuclear energy?

I believe that that our existing coal fleet and our existing assets are a good bridge to get there, and we have to build while we develop small modular reactors in Indiana, or we won't be able to meet the demands of our economy.

It would be, it would be wrong for policymakers in the state of Indiana to not look to a nuclear future and understand the steps we need to go through to get there, to encourage that investment, to ensure that we have an abundant supply of energy.

Not in ten years, not in 20 years, but in 50 years.

And I know you talked about this also when you testified you wanted lawmakers to frame this, not about saying which forms of energy are good.

You know, it maybe some in some sectors wind is bad, you know, or or solar is bad.

So don't think about this.

Think about the dollars and cents impact on ratepayers.

Is that really what this comes down to in your eyes, or is there a safety concern, for Casey as well?

Oh, are we not opposed to nuclear power generally and still have no, solution for the radioactive?

Well, that's.

That's a starting point.

You're opposed to it.

But no, I think with this piece of legislation, the starting point is, you know, Mr. Ford referenced the balance sheets of those companies, the balance sheets of those companies that want these technologies certainly looks better than the balance sheet of households trying to decide whether they can pay rent, you know, pick up their prescriptions or pay their utility bills.

So that's our issue with the bills.

So those balance sheets of those companies can support development costs.

And that is not the right of the ratepayer.

And my friend Matt here, I don't find it surprising that the coal industry, of course, is touting small modular reactors that aren't ready yet and may never be ready because that we see that is just obstructing the way to keep your coal plants open.

Part of the strategy, Matt.

Bill.

Absolutely not.

we believe that nuclear is a big part of the future, and we believe that we're the appropriate bridge to get there.

When we see countries developing economically across the world, they're developing coal plants to fire their economies, and they're doing that because it's the most affordable and today, far cleaner than it's ever been.

Indiana should maximize that resource as it plans towards a future, where I believe nuclear will be an important part and probably the hallmark of where we end.

If I may, we talk about the most affordable.

It's the utility companies themselves, retiring coal fired power plants because of the economics.

And then talking about Mars.

Duke energy and their most recent IRP screened out small modular reactors because of the cost.

So we see neither choice as affordable.

We've got affordable technologies available on the shelf today.

Wind, solar, batteries in heavens knows efficiency.

We should be investing in things, that reduce demand on the grid, that provide choices for customers, reduce monthly bills and put pocket put money in the pocketbooks of everyday working class Hoosiers who need that money.

Final word.

we're almost out of time here at Jon Ford in in four years.

If you keep this position to the first term in the broader run, administration will decide on a second term later.

well, this conversation will be the same.

Or will it be fundamentally different?

I think it will.

It will be somewhat the same, but hopefully moving have moved forward.

Right where now we're talking about solving some of the issues with large off takers and how we're providing them energy for the future, and hopefully doing it in a way that respects the ratepayers the best that we can.

All right.

Thank you all very much for your input.

Thank you on this very important topic.

Again, my guests have been Democratic Representative Alex Burton of Evansville, Jon Ford of the Indiana Office of Energy Development, Kerwin Olson of the Citizens Action Coalition, and Matt Bell of Reliable Energy.

Time now for our weekly visit with Indiana lawmakers analyst Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hanna News Service.

I, ed at the end of last session, you correctly pointed out, I remember when we were sort of assessing the session and looking ahead, that energy issues would be front and center.

Is this what you imagined?

Well, certainly on the reliability front, Jon, that's the big push from the administration and from the industry.

But I think I thought there'd be more of a focus on affordability because they're starting to build some kind of of groundswell.

And a lot of communities around the state particularly focused around Evansville about affordability issues and one of their utilities in particular down there, that that was raising their prices, raising distribution fees.

So the distribution fees were almost as much as the cost of the actual utility service.

And the municipal governments down in southwest Indiana, in particular, were getting very upset about the cost that they were having to pay and not being able to recoup those kinds of costs, because that's now something that's really a something you can pass on to the constituency.

And we really haven't seen that kind of a of a groundswell that I expected from consumers on this.

I thought that it would be a lot more like we're seeing or we saw during the campaign on property taxes.

That's to come.

Does that change or is this the debate as what we've seen thus far is going to see us through to the end of the session?

Well, the important thing right now is being able to provide the service as our panelists pointed out.

And then you've got to look beyond that to managing to promote economic development in the state by making sure that you've got the ability to service these these new data centers and what have you.

They're coming in.

And so at that point, availability becomes a bigger issue than affordability.

All right.

We'll leave it there.

Ed, as always appreciate your insight.

Thank you Jon.

Who has the authority to make decisions in higher education?

University presidents, faculty and staff in public institutions might argue that it's their right.

While some legislators disagree and say it's their responsibility.

Last session, the Indiana General Assembly passed a law allowing universities to evaluate and subsequently revoke a professor's tenure if they fail to show, quote, intellectual diversity.

On the next Indiana lawmakers.

Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

Until next week, take care.

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