Hello and welcome to Eco-Report. For W-F-H-B, I’m Julianna Dailey. And I’m Cynthia Roberts. Later in the program, we conclude with Part Four of a series by Environmental Correspondent Zyro Roze from an interview with Bill Brown of the Environmental Resilience Institute or E-R-I of Indiana University on how E-R-I assists institutions, communities, organizations, businesses and governmental entities to plan for, mitigate and adapt to Climate Change impacts.

And now for your environmental reports:

According to NUVO, a news organization based in Indy, Indiana lawmakers passed more than three dozen bills in the just-concluded session. Most of the bills are intended to make operating in Indiana more profitable for electric and water utilities or their fuel suppliers. By the Indiana Environmental Reporter’s count, Indiana lawmakers passed 15 bills affecting utilities, including some that allow them to pass more of their costs directly to consumers, prolong the life of fossil fuels and place more hurdles in the way of large-scale renewable energy system adoption.

Indiana lawmakers also passed eight bills affecting various parts of state water issues in the state. Some of the bills target water infrastructure funding and make it easier for schools and childcare facilities to test for contaminants. Other bills focus on changing how the state regulates new types of septic tanks, water districts, and other issues.

This year, lawmakers also focused on establishing and funding economic development initiatives that would help develop brownfields and reclaim coal mines. However, they would tax drivers who use fossil fuel alternatives and punish financial institutions that choose to limit their investment in fossil fuels.

Bills regulating new technology in the state, like small modular nuclear reactors, carbon capture and sequestration, and advanced recycling, have also passed, as well as bills that authorized land use studies and PFAS blood monitoring for firefighters.

In regard to UTILITY BILLS:The Indiana General Assembly passed bills that establish a five-pillar guideline for making energy policy decisions;

* Make it more difficult for utilities to retire coal-fired power plants,

* Allow utilities to pass on the costs of coal ash pond cleanups and other expenditures to customers,

* Eliminate competitive bidding for transmission lines,

* Allow natural gas-fired power plants to qualify as a“clean energy project,”

* Ensure that a planned state coal ash permitting program will be as lenient as federal law allows it to be. 

Lawmakers also passed a bill that would allow the Environmental Rules Board to update air permit fees, establish guidelines for communities to accept solar and wind energy systems and study the best practices for the disposal of solar panels and wind turbine blades. 

Other bills passed would authorize pay raises for water district board members, require state homeland security authorization for expanding battery energy storage systems, set the foundation for further taxing of utilities with wind energy systems and authorize a state program to pay for half of the costs of decommissioning or replacing underground petroleum tanks.

---Norm Holy

Continuing with the Indiana Legislative Environmental bills, there are also WATER POLICY BILLS:

Indiana lawmakers passed two bills authored by the same legislator that deal with flood plains in different ways. Senate Bill 242 repeals the requirement for local floodplain administrators to use the best available floodplain mapping data when reviewing permit applications to build in or near a floodplain, while Senate Bill 412, among other flooding issues,