For a material that started out as rotting vegetation at the bottom of primordial swamps, coal has made quite a name for itself. By fueling the industrial revolution, coal “lifted the burden of drudgery from the shoulders of workers,” as one author put it, thereby altering the course of human history and setting the stage for modern society. Although its use has declined in recent decades, coal continues to supply about one-fourth of the nation’s electricity and more than half the power consumed by Hoosiers. On the downside, coal combustion releases millions of tons of carbon dioxide into Indiana’s skies and produces ash, laden with heavy metals that threaten the state’s groundwater. Coal also generates a lot of sparks and a good deal of heat at the Indiana Statehouse as policymakers clash over the pace of the state’s all-but-inevitable transition to natural gas and renewable energy. On the next edition of Indiana Lawmakers, we’ll fire up the debate over the state’s energy future. Joining host Jon Schwantes for what promises to be a high-energy discussion will be Republican Representative Ed Soliday of Valparaiso, Chair of the House Utilities, Energy and Telecommunications Committee and Co-Chair of the state’s 21st Century Energy Policy Development Task Force; Democratic Representative Matt Pierce of Bloomington, the ranking minority member of the House Utilities Energy and Telecommunications Committee and a member of the aforementioned energy policy task force; former state Representative Matt Bell, now a Statehouse lobbyist who serves as chief executive officer of Reliable Energy, a trade association created late last year to promote Indiana’s coal industry; and Jesse Kharbanda, Executive Director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, which bills itself as Indiana’s largest environmental policy organization.