Latest news with #HouseBill1007
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
House, Senate push along bills to attract nuclear developments to Indiana
Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, addresses the House chamber on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (Casey Smith/Indiana Capital Chronicle) Multiple Republican energy bills dealing with incentives for nuclear power inched closer to the governor's desk Tuesday following key votes in both the House and Senate. That included House Bill 1007, a priority measure that would expedite approval processes for large-load customers like data centers and create cost recovery mechanisms for projects utilities take on to serve those big customers. It also would require a big prospective grid addition to make 'significant and meaningful financial assurances' for such projects — reimbursing at least 80% of costs and protecting other existing and future customers from the expenses. The bill additionally gets tough with utilities planning to close — or convert to natural gas — any coal-fired plants of at least 125 megawatts. Current law mandates utilities that are not generating at least 85% of peak demand to report three-year projections to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC). The legislation would instead require all utilities to annually report the amount of resource generating capacity they plan to take offline. If, after an investigation, the IURC doesn't think a utility can provide reliable service, it would have to block the utility's plan or order it to either acquire or build capacity. 'This bill is about three things: high-wage advanced manufacturing jobs, protecting consumers from rate shifts from large-scale loads, and protecting consumers from rate increases through premature plant closures,' said bill sponsor Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford. 'Those are three worthy goals.' The bill advanced from the Senate in a 36-13 vote, with some bipartisan opposition. All but one Democrat — Sen. David Niezgodski, a co-sponsor — voted against the proposal, along with four Republicans: Sens. Ron Alting, Vaneta Becker, Aaron Freeman and Mike Young. After strong pushback, senators removed more contentious provisions that intended to boost small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) development — including a 20% sales tax credit for SMR manufacturers. But Democratic Sen. J.D. Ford, of Indianapolis, said he still had 'serious concerns' about pieces left in the bill that could boost 'a risky, unproven technology,' referring to SMRs. 'My constituents … they don't support this,' he said. 'They don't want to be the test case for nuclear experiments that have failed in other states.' House Bill 1007 missed the opportunity to put important consumer protections in place. – Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis Sen. Andrea Hunley, D-Indianapolis, expressed additional concerns 'about the message being sent to ratepayers and the entire state.' 'House Bill 1007 missed the opportunity to put important consumer protections in place,' she said. 'We know that our utilities already operate as state-sanctioned monopolies, and we have to make sure that we are empowering the IURC, but also empowering ourselves and our ratepayers, to truly, truly get a handle on the increasing rates, and make sure that we're not politicizing that in any way.' Shortly after the Senate voted to return the bill to the House for final approval, Robyn Skuya-Boss, director for the Hoosier Chapter of the Sierra Club, reiterated the advocacy group's concerns over what she called an 'Energy Inflation Act.' She emphasized that legislative action came just days after Gov. Mike Braun signed coal-related executive orders similar to those endorsed by President Donald Trump. 'Hoosiers should be alarmed that we're witnessing a massive transfer of wealth from hard-working families to financially healthy utilities and tech companies in the form of higher utility bills along with increased air and water pollution,' Skuya-Boss said in a statement. 'Renewable energy adds a tremendous amount of value to the grid, and it's disheartening that lawmakers, utilities, and tech companies are actively standing in the way of progress for Indiana's economy and our environment.' Across the hall, lawmakers in the House made progress on two other bills, overcoming hesitation from some members of the supermajority. The first, Senate Bill 423, forms a small modular nuclear reactor 'pilot' program intended to attract interested developers to bring nuclear to Indiana. Bill sponsor Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valpraiso, made clear though that the legislation blocks program participants from charging ratepayers for no-cost contributions by third parties. Opposition brings likely end to Indiana utility siting bill, but the issue isn't going away 'Already, partnerships are being formed. …. What this bill does is place restrictions on those partnerships that currently do not exist,' he said. 'It's important that we have some control over these partnerships.' Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said he while 'appreciate(d)' the bill's intent to require tech companies to 'pick up some of these costs for SMRs, it still has a fatal flaw.' 'At the end of the day, if the project doesn't pan out, which I think is maybe more likely than not … the ratepayers are going to be on the hook for some of those costs, which is going to be substantial,' Pierce said. The bill ultimately passed in a mixed 67-29 vote, sending it back to the Senate chamber. Also returning to the opposing chamber one last time — in a similarly divided 59-38 tally — is Senate Bill 425, which addresses transitions of coal-fired plants to natural gas or SMR sites. Soliday said the bill seeks to ensure that locals don't drag out rezoning processes needed for those transitions to move forward. Provisions in the legislation set timelines for both utilities and local zoning authorities to prevent yearslong 'back and forth delays' that defer decisions. 'In some counties, not all, instead of making a decision, they keep deferring,' Soliday said, pointing to moratoriums, for example, that 'keep investors' money tied up, and they can't move forward with a project.' The bill limits such moratoriums to just one year, then local governments 'have to decide.' CONTACT US 'A 'no' is OK,' Soliday continued, 'but do it in a timely way so the developers can move on.' Pierce had reservations about this measure, too. 'What this bill is basically saying is if someone comes into your community and they want to put a small modular reactor into a generation facility that exists, your local communities have nothing they can say about that,' he said. 'I think it's a mistake what we're doing,' Pierce added. 'We're essentially saying that we value efficiency and speed more than we value public input, because under the current system, you kind of have this back and forth with advisory planning commissions … and that does take some time, but it gives people who are interested in that zoning issue an opportunity to be involved.' Rep. Kendell Culp, R-Rensselaer, maintained that the bill still allows 'an opportunity to go back and forth with the planning commission.' 'The ultimate decision-makers are the county commissioners, the legislative body,' Culp held. 'What a lot of these communities are doing is they're using this as a stall tactic. … We're trying to tighten up this loophole a little bit. Local units will still have a whole year to make a decision, and they can still say no, but they can't delay decisions. … because this drives down development, currently.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Axios
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
One month left in Indiana legislative session
It's crunch time at the Indiana Statehouse. The big picture: There is one month left in the legislative session, and the biggest task, writing the state's two-year budget, is still far from finished. Promised property tax overhaul and school funding reform are also still outstanding, likely not to be tackled until just before next week's committee deadline. Here's what we're watching this week: 🟢 Transgender athletes ban nears passage House Bill 1041 would ban transgender women from participating in women's sports at public and private colleges — expanding Indiana's similar ban at the K-12 school sports level. The Senate could vote on it as early as this week. If the bill isn't amended on the Senate floor, it would head to Gov. Mike Braun, who is expected to sign it. 🟢 IPS, charter schools "alliance" A proposal to create a body that would study how best to manage all public school buildings within the Indianapolis Public Schools district will likely be added to Senate Bill 373 on Wednesday. The "Indianapolis Local Education Alliance" would also look at how to merge transportation services. The House Education Committee will vote on the amendment and bill this week. 😬 Partisan school boards to get a vote Senate Bill 287, a bill to make Indiana's school board elections partisan, has been sitting on the House's third reading calendar for a week. Why it matters: This often signals that the author isn't confident the bill will pass when called for a final vote. House Speaker Todd Huston told reporters last week that it should get called down, but he wouldn't say whether he thought it would pass. Zoom in: After several years of trying, this is the first time an effort to make the races partisan has gotten this far, but there's still disagreement on how best to do it. The Senate would have school board candidates follow the same nomination process as any other political candidate, while the House version skips primaries and still provides a nonpartisan option. ⏳ Energy bill awaiting recommitment hearing House Bill 1007 is aimed at growing the state's energy capacity, in part by embracing small nuclear reactors. It's a priority bill for House Republicans, but it's not had a smooth road. The latest: It passed out of the Senate Utilities Committee last week on partisan lines, over the objections of consumer advocates worried that the cost of bringing on large-load users like data centers will fall on average Hoosiers.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Proposed Indiana nuclear plants are bait-and-switch scams
In a disturbing move, the Indiana General Assembly recently advanced several experimental nuclear power bills. As IndyStar's Karl Schneider has explained, House Bill 1007, Senate Bill 423 and Senate Bill 424 would let Indiana's for-profit electric companies undertake plans for small modular nuclear plants — while sticking ratepayers with billions in development costs, even if the plants never get built. Opinion: Indiana Republicans prioritize Illinois voters over Hoosiers These nuclear plants are a bait-and-switch. We're told we need them because new data centers are opening in Indiana. True, data centers are energy hogs. But the nukes won't be ready until the mid-2030s at the earliest. What will the data centers run on in the meantime? Hey, we'll just burn more coal and gas! Why not build more wind and solar instead? They're cheaper and they'd be ready far sooner. Paired with battery storage, they'd be a reliable resource for data center needs without the deadly pollution. Nuclear plants notoriously run behind schedule and over budget — until they get canned. Take the NuScale small-nuclear project in Idaho. The power supplier involved had to end NuScale's contract once development costs ballooned past $9.3 billion. The plant never even broke ground. These bills amount to a pricey, polluting scam. Peg Hausman lives in Bloomington. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Proposed Indiana nuclear plants are bait-and-switch scams | Letters
Chicago Tribune
17-02-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Indiana House legislation focused on nuclear energy moves to Senate
A bill focused on bringing more nuclear power to Indiana has passed the House of Representatives and moved on to the Senate. House Bill 1007 — authored by Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso — would provide a tax liability for expenses related to manufacturing small modular nuclear reactors. Indiana has no nuclear power plants, but state leaders have pushed for nuclear power. According to Post-Tribune archives, the bill would establish procedures for energy utilities to request from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission an expedited generation resource plan to meet customer load growth that exceeds a specific threshold; a generation resource submittal for the acquisition of a specific generation resource in accordance with an approved EGR plan; and a project to serve one or more large load customers. The bill says project development costs for a public utility should recover 80% of the approved project development costs under the approved rate schedule and defer the remaining 20% of approved project development costs for recovery as part of the utility's next general rate case before the IURC, according to Post-Tribune archives. House Bill 1007, on Feb. 13, passed the House in a 67-25 vote. It was referred to the Senate on Feb. 14, according to the Indiana General Assembly website. 'It's an important bill,' Soliday said. 'A lot of this deals with the future. Progress is made when gray-haired old men … plant trees whose shade they'll never enjoy.' Soliday expects the Senate to read the bill during the second week in March, he told the Post-Tribune Monday. Environmental activists called House Bill 1007 'an unnecessary energy inflation' for families, according to a Feb. 13 news release. Various organizations say the bill creates 'a cumbersome process' to retire coal plants. Proposals from lawmakers could make Indiana one of the most coal-reliant states in the country, according to the news release. 'Hoosier communities need Indiana lawmakers to focus on protecting the interests of hard-working families instead of putting together one of the largest corporate handouts for monopoly utilities and tech companies that Indiana has ever seen,' Robyn Skuya-Boss, Hoosier chapter director for the Sierra Club, said in the news release. Ashley Williams, executive director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana, said House Bill 1007 is an attack on region residents, mentioning residents who attended packed IURC hearings this winter about a proposed NIPSCO electric rate increase. The 22% electric rate increase would cost NIPSCO's typical residential customers an additional $32 each month, according to the utility, but the Citizens Action Coalition says the increase is more like $45, according to Post-Tribune archives. 'For far too long, Northwest Indiana has been the fossil fuel industry's dumping ground,' Williams said in the news release. 'This legislation opens the floodgates for faulty technologies that will treat our backyards as testing grounds for unproven SMRs to serve hyper-scale data centers, which will siphon off the only drinking water source for millions and leave us to foot the bill.' Soliday stressed the importance of small modular nuclear reactors, saying that one might not be certified for about 10 years, but a lot of states will move to those as an energy source. SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors that have about one-third generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. A study from Purdue University found that SMRs release carbon-free electricity that have the capacity of Indiana growing energy needs. The Purdue study found that R M Shahfer, a coal site in Jasper County, would be suitable for nuclear energy. The study also looked at Bailly in Porter County and Michigan City's existing coal plant, but both were deemed unsuitable. Nuclear energy is the most dangerous, expensive and dirtiest way to generate electricity, Kerwin Olson, executive director of the Citizens Action Coalition, previously told the Post-Tribune. Olson is also concerned about the waste and construction costs. '(SMRs) are incredibly, incredibly financially risky,' he said. 'Utility companies would not even consider building (SMRs) or advanced nuclear reactors without the full backing of American taxpayers and ratepayers' subsidies and incentives.' SMRs aren't new technology, Soliday said, adding that they have been in nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers for 70 years. He encourages people to do their research on SMRs to see how they would benefit the state. 'Do what I did,' Soliday said. 'Do your homework.'
Yahoo
16-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Legislators look into nuclear reactors; advocates concerned
ANDERSON — A trio of bills working their way through the Indiana General Assembly are designed to bolster the production and eventual use of small modular reactors, a carbon-free means of generating electricity. But some of the particulars of the legislation are prompting concerns from environmental advocates. House Bill 1007, authored by Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, provides tax credits to manufacturers of small modular reactors, or SMRs. The factory-built form of nuclear reactor is capable of producing at least 300 megawatts of electricity. Two other bills, Senate Bills 423 and 424, would start an SMR pilot program in which utility companies could collaborate with 'eligible partners' to develop SMR sites and allow utility companies to request that the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission shoulder at least some of the project costs. Both bills passed the Senate last week and were set for consideration by the House; HB 1007 passed the House Ways and Means Committee. 'Our goal in this ongoing endeavor is keep Indiana competitive in the national and world marketplace by keeping our five foundational energy pillars — reliability, affordability, resilient, stability and environmental sustainability — in balance,' Soliday, who chairs the House Utilities Committee, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Sam Carpenter, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, believes that goal is more of a dream than a reality. SMRs, unlike other forms of clean energy such as wind and solar, are unprecedented, Carpenter said, noting that no utility-based SMR sites are currently in operation in the United States. 'Costs are going to be high for the next 10 to 20 years,' he said. 'We don't think that rate payers should pay for the permitting, the planning, the development costs — which will be possible should these bills pass — associated with unproven technology.' Carpenter's sentiments were echoed in a feasibility study published in 2023 by Purdue University and Duke Energy. One of the study's conclusions was that the lack of sites make estimating costs difficult. The issue of costs is especially worrisome to Carpenter, who noted that several attempts to produce SMRs have been abandoned due to high costs. In 2023, Utah Associated Muncipal Power Systems abandoned its SMR power plant project after costs reached $9.3 billion. Kati Austgen, senior project manager of the new nuclear sector of the Nuclear Energy Institute, noted that costs could be halved through a federal investment tax credit among other funding avenues. SMRs can also be installed in existing facilities like retired coal power plants, though installing the infrastructure could take a number of years. Carpenter fears that the state's latest push will disproportionately impact the average ratepayer. Companies like Tesla or Rolls Royce should be worried about funding SMRs, not the Legislature, he said. Austgen said rate payers will be impacted to some degree or another. 'The ratepayers do (typically) pay a portion of the cost,' she said. Carpenter recommended that Indiana prioritize solar and wind, which he believes are proven and comparatively inexpensive. Austgen suggested a mixed energy portfolio for Indiana. She said multiple studies have shown that the cost of nuclear energy is on par with the cost of renewables, provided that certain conditions are met. 'In order for renewables to be considered firm and available at all times, they have to be paired with battery backup or storage. It needs to be long duration storage,' Austgen said. 'Some of that battery technology, storage technology is also unproven and still in development.' SMRs also raise safety concerns for environmental advocates like Carpenter, who noted that nuclear plants can be prone to meltdowns. Nuclear meltdowns occur when a reactor's fuel rods overheat and eventually become exposed to the open air. These reactors rely on radioactive materials to generate electricity. Such materials, if left in the open, can be harmful to humans. Most nuclear reactors use uranium, a radioactive element associated with diseases such as kidney disease, cancer and, in some cases, birth defects. 'If we have SMRs around Indiana, we have all those targets or potential liabilities,' Carpenter said. Austgen said reactors' safety features have improved and will continue to improve over time, hopefully resulting in fewer accidents. She noted that nuclear sites are of special interest to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which monitors power plants and makes sure safety requirements are met. 'We (the nuclear industry) ensure that for the health and safety of our employees as well as our communities that we are continuously monitoring and containing any radiation,' Austgen said. 'The public health and safety limits are set such that no one gets any radiation from living near a nuclear power plant.'
