Energy lobby ramped up spending on lawmakers amid push for nuclear. It worked

Indianapolis Star

13 hours ago

The Indiana legislators ushering in a new era of nuclear power were showered with sports tickets and meals from the very utility companies that stood to benefit from the incentive-packed legislation, lobbying records show.
IndyStar analyzed hundreds of lobbying disclosures from the most recent legislative session to map the influence of lobbyists on lawmakers. The documents revealed a dominant energy lobby that spent tens of thousands of dollars currying favor with legislators. Among those legislators were powerful utility committee chairmen Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, and Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, who led the charge on legislation to incentivize small modular reactors.
While proponents argued that the legislation would help Indiana transition from coal to nuclear and serve a looming future of unprecedented energy demand, critics point to an unfortunate reality: no SMR has been successfully completed in the U.S. yet, and attempts to do so have suffered delays and cost overruns in the billions.
One bill that became law, Senate Enrolled Act 424, allows utilities to recover costs from ratepayers before even beginning a project. Consumer advocates told IndyStar they believed the legislation would raise rates for Hoosiers already paying record-high bills.
'And we wonder why nobody can pay their utility bills,' Kerwin Olson, executive director for Citizens Action Coalition, said. 'Because we have a complicit legislature and a complicit regulatory commission that gives the utilities everything they want, including legislation like this that was just passed.'
The Indiana Energy Association and Indiana Michigan Power each spent more than any other group on gifts and private meals with lawmakers, according to disclosures filed with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission covering the period containing the most recent legislative session. That doesn't include spending for events in which every lawmaker was invited or receptions.
Both groups supported SMR-related legislation in committee meetings this year, testifying in support of House Enrolled Act 1007, Senate Enrolled Act 424 and SEA 425. They also each shelled out more than $18,000 on gifts and entertainment between Nov. 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025.
In one case, just days after Indiana Michigan Power announced plans to turn its retired Rockport coal plant into an SMR, the company bought a meal for Soliday and six other lawmakers on the House's utilities committee, according to lobbying disclosures.
While lobbying can help strengthen relationships with legislators, outright quid pro quos are not allowed, experts told IndyStar. Lobbyists can also serve as subject matter experts for lawmakers, making them a helpful tool when crafting legislation.
"We are in a complex and dynamic environment that is driving public policy to respond to the significant growth in electric demand," Danielle McGrath, president of the Indiana Energy Association, told IndyStar in a statement over email. "If you look at the legislation this past session, it centers on ensuring Indiana keeps pace with either additional resources or new technology, and it does so with regulatory oversight and consumer protections."
Indiana Michigan Power did not respond to an interview request to elaborate on its position and why the organization increased spending.
Koch, who authored the bill among other pro-SMR efforts, and his wife received around $1,600 in dinner and drinks from utilities, including Centerpoint Energy, I&M, IPALCO Enterprises — the parent company for AES Indiana — and Duke Energy. The boon represents nearly half of the money lobbyists spent on gifts and entertainment for Koch this cycle.
Soliday and his wife received nearly $900 worth of meals from energy lobbyists, the vast majority of the value of the gifts and entertainment he received from lobbyists.
Neither responded to multiple IndyStar requests for an interview through spokespeople.
Koch and Soliday were not the sole legislators to be courted by utilities. More than half of the 41 legislators listed as sponsors for House Bill 1007, which provides tax credits to Hoosier manufacturers working on SMR projects, received gifts or entertainment directly from utilities or the Indiana Energy Association.
The same day the House approved that bill, Duke Energy paid for a $67 meal for Soliday.
Duke Energy wasn't just purchasing meals. The company devoted $250,000 to compensate lawyers — the 3rd largest amount of any Indiana employer — in addition to the utility's spend on entertainment.
Aaron Dusso, a political science professor at Indiana University Indianapolis, said while lobbying certainly buys influence, the lobbyist-legislator relationship usually begins on the campaign trail.
And that was true for Duke Energy, which became a top donor for Koch's campaign shortly after his appointment as Senate Utility Committee chairman in 2020. Between 2021 and 2023, Duke Energy and its political action committee gave a combined $15,000 to the powerful state senator, according to campaign finance records.
All of Koch's constituents are in Duke Energy's service territory, where some have criticized recent rate hikes. Still, it can be difficult for voters to connect dots buried in obscure reports and highly technical bill language.
'Our power bills might go up, we might be upset about that, but how are we going to know who did what and why?' Dusso said. 'That's just very difficult for the average voter to really ascertain.'
Duke Energy, which directed questions to the Indiana Energy Association, has been eyeing SMR technology since long before this most recent session.
The debate over how to update Indiana's grid without burdening ratepayers reached a boiling point Aug. 6, when Portage Mayor Austin Bonta said Soliday had sent him a threatening text in response to the mayor's statement about rate increases, which many residents had complained to him about.
"I promise I will work hard to make certain your city never gets any revenue increases!!!" Soliday told Bonta over text, according to a screenshot shared by the mayor through Facebook.
One of Indiana's first forays into nuclear power began in 1977 with the Marble Hill plant in Madison, Indiana.
Public Service Indiana, a utility company that later became Duke, began construction on the project in hopes of producing cheaper energy. Though the company initially estimated the project would cost $1.4 billion, the projected cost ballooned to $7.1 billion in 1983. Inundated with protests and newfound hesitancy following the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, the company ceased construction a year later.
To Olson, Marble Hill provides a glimpse at what SMRs could become without proper oversight, with ratepayers covering billions of dollars spent on abandoned projects.
Olson also pointed to a more recent example of a failed nuclear project: an SMR endeavor in Idaho.
Portland-based developer NuScale Power had expected to complete the project in a few years but announced its termination nearly a decade later in 2023. By then, the company had spent about $9 billion.
The resurgence of nuclear, now packaged in a slightly different form, accompanies a projected surge in energy demand from data centers.
An IndyStar investigation published in June found that the anticipated energy needs for just nine of these facilities account for more than half of Indiana utilities' electricity capacity in 2023. Those stark numbers, coupled with the closure of coal plants and stagnating renewables, had energy companies and lawmakers looking for an alternative.
SMRs rose from the fray, boasting the ability to provide consistent power while also satisfying tech companies' carbon goals.
Olson isn't convinced the deal is quite so sweet, though.
'It's all hyperbole,' Olson said.
Recent studies have echoed these concerns, such as a 2024 analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis that found SMRs are still too expensive, risky and slow to build to help the transition from fossil fuels.
Senate Enrolled Act 424 allows utilities to recover up to 80% of project development costs for SMRs a category that includes everything from design to licensing and permitting to equipment, before even beginning construction.
With approval from the IURC, the utility can then periodically adjust rates to recover costs for the project so long as they don't adjust the rate schedule more than once a year.
The utility can recover the costs even if the project is cancelled under certain conditions, such as if the cancellation was made 'prudently' and 'for good cause.'
For McGrath, SEA 424 is important because its cost recovery mechanisms help offset the high capital costs of building SMRs, she said. Consumers are protected, too, she wrote, because it requires IURC oversight.
Olson, however, doesn't trust that the law will safeguard consumers, pointing to the vagueness inherent in the law's language charging the commission with evaluating a project's reasonableness.
House Enrolled Act 1007 has similar language to SEA 424 but also gives tax credits to SMR manufacturers in Indiana and asks large load customers to reimburse 80% of the costs required to add them to the grid, which McGrath pointed to as an example of consumer protections baked into the slate of bills.
Other laws passed by lawmakers this year related to SMRs are SEA 423, which works to incentivize developers to partner with Indiana utilities on SMR technology, and SEA 425, which helps speed up rezoning efforts for energy generation resources by reducing local government timelines on converting retired energy production zones to new generation facilities.