ICV Legislative Update: Week of March 7, 2025
Welcome back to the second half of the 2025 legislative session! If you’re new here, we send this update each week breaking down the latest news and bill movement at the Statehouse. If you know someone who’d like to receive these updates, please encourage them to sign up here.
HOW THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS WORKS
You might already be an expert on how ideas become bills that become laws in Indiana, but if you want a brief overview—plus some tips on how to engage with lawmakers—check out our most recent blog post.
The second half of session always moves faster than the first half. If you want to stay up to date on the latest, make sure you’re following us on our social media platforms.
ICYMI: INDIANA CONSERVATION VOTERS IN THE INDY STAR!
ICV’s Delaney Barber Kwon and Desi Rybolt were quoted in an Indianapolis Star story about environmental legislation that didn’t make it past the halfway point this session. Quotes from the story:
“There are issues like community solar, a simple, straightforward policy solution that would empower local communities to lower energy costs and embrace energy freedom,” Barber Kwon said. “There have been a lot of positive conversations about it, but it didn’t make the leap this year.”
“PFAS contamination is a serious and complex challenge that requires careful time and consideration,” Rybolt said.
“It is very important to keep the conversation going with your legislators on these policy issues as there is no subject matter truly dead until they gavel out for the session,” Barber Kwon said.
FIND A THIRD HOUSE MEETING IN YOUR DISTRICT
As we enter the second half of the legislative session, we compiled a calendar of “third house” events, where lawmakers hold meetings in their home districts to get feedback from their constituents.
If you know of a third house event in your community that we missed, please respond to this email and let us know the details so we can include it in our list. Learn more about Third House meetings in this blog post.
BILL UPDATES
✅ SUPPORT: Senate Bill 422 supports technologies to make our energy grid more efficient and reliable for the future. SB 422 passed out of the House Utilities Committee on Tuesday and is headed to the full house next week.
🛑 OPPOSE: Senate Bill 424 creates a pathway for utilities to bill ratepayers up front for SMR project development costs before anything is built and does not require project completion. Use our link to action below to contact your legislators to vote NO on raising your monthly bills. SB 424 scheduled for a hearing in House Utilities on Tuesday, March 11, at 10:30 am in Room 156-A.
👀 BILLS WE ARE WATCHING IN THE SECOND HALF 👀
😐 NEUTRAL: Senate Bill 4 establishes a permitting structure for significant water withdrawals.
😐 NEUTRAL: Senate Bill 423 Small modular nuclear reactor pilot program. We are encouraged by SB 423’s pilot project model which allows multiple stakeholders to bear the financial risk and advance this new technology in Indiana. However, it contains identical language from SB 424 allowing utilities to bill ratepayers upfront for project development costs and does not require financial risk sharing between public/private partners.
🛑 OPPOSE: Senate Bill 425 Energy Production Zones. This bill includes language to incentivize land re-use for new energy projects by limiting local control of project siting. Unfortunately, it excludes wind and solar energy from participating in energy production zones.
🛑 OPPOSE: House Bill 1007 shifts costs of small modular nuclear reactors (SMR) and outdated coal generation costs on to ratepayers and taxpayers. Use our link to action below to contact your legislators to vote NO on raising your monthly bills.
🛑 OPPOSE: House Bill 1037: Stormwater management. This bill could remove the ability for localities to require stormwater permits for construction projects under an acre. This could significantly increase flooding and pollution and reduce water quality across the state, costing taxpayers money.
🛑 OPPOSE: Senate Bill 10: Voter Registration. This bill removes student ID from the list of acceptable voter ID, and unnecessarily discourages young people from participating in elections. Take action: Our partners at Stand Up Indiana have made it easy to let your lawmakers know that you oppose SB10!
🛑 OPPOSE: House Bill 1680: This sweeping election bill creates additional voting barriers for naturalized citizens, opens the door to increased voter intimidation, burdens houseless people and disenfranchises independent voters by closing Indiana primaries.
🛑 OPPOSE: Senate Bill 287 and House Bill 1230: By injecting partisan politics into Indiana school board races, these bills will increase political division in schools and make it difficult for ordinary citizens and members of the military to serve their communities.
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS
🚨 Tell Indiana lawmakers consumers can’t afford to bankroll utilities + big business! 🚨
Indiana lawmakers currently are considering multiple bills that would shift the enormous potential costs of development and deployment of untested energy production onto ratepayers. One bill would even allow utilities to charge ratepayers for losses if the state forces them to keep burning dirty, expensive coal.
Contact your representative today and tell them you want utilities and big businesses to pay for their own research and development of experimental technologies. Hard-working Hoosiers can’t afford any more charges on their monthly bills!
Say no to paying for developers’ messes!
Developers are asking lawmakers to sign off on shifting cleanup costs from their messes to taxpayers. Without proper measures in place, these messes send dirt and sediment into our waterways and sewers, backing them up and causing flooding and poor water quality that end up costing YOU more money to fix. Tell your senator today that you don’t want to pay for developers’ messes!
Ask Speaker Huston to Preserve Student Voter ID
ICV joined our coalition partners, All IN For Democracy, in signing an open letter to Speaker Huston agreeing with his skepticism about the numerous anti-voter bills moving through the House and asking him to oppose SB10, which would eliminate school ID as a valid form of voter identification—potentially disenfranchising thousands of students.
You can reach out, too! Help our partners at Common Cause Indiana thank him for saying that and ask him to kill SB10.
GOOD NEWS SATURDAY
ICV’s Daniela and Delaney attended the Indiana Sustainability and Resiliency Conference last week with many other students, advocates, and sustainability professionals. The day was full of meaningful conversations, creating new friendships, and reconnecting with each other. Thank you to IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute for hosting us!
UPCOMING EVENTS
March 10: 2025 Audubon Great Lakes: Advocacy Day at the Indiana Statehouse
March 10: Troublemakers for Tomorrow Chapter 1: Immigration Bills & Issues
March 17: Confront the Climate Crisis: We Rise Together Statehouse Day
March 17: NAACP Advocacy Day 2025
