Proposed state legislation attempting to slow Indiana’s transition away from coal is a special favor to the coal lobby at the expense of Hoosiers.
House Bill 1414 would require state approval before any power plants can be shut down or sold. The bill advanced out of committee Wednesday along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposing, and is headed to the House floor.
The bill makes sense if it was written for the coal lobby, but doesn’t make any sense for Hoosiers.
Bloomington’s Rep. Matt Pierce, the ranking minority member of the committee and a senior lecturer in the Media School, led the opposition to the Republican bill.
“Rather than embracing a clean energy future, they have chosen to reward a special interest by clinging to the past. For a party that professes to support free markets, it is very curious that they would want to interfere with the marketplace at the expense of more competitive forms of energy,” Rep. Pierce told the Chicago Tribune.
The author of the bill, Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, told the Indianapolis Star the bill was intended to ensure a methodical transitionout of coal, not to save coal. He added a provision for the bill to expire on July 1, 2021.
Soliday might not save coal in the long term, but this bill would help save coal in the short term. Saving coal, for any amount of time, will hurt Indiana.
Propping up these coal companies will cost Hoosiers. Renewable energy was cheaper than coal for the first time in 2018, and the cost of renewable energy continued to decline in 2019, according to Forbes.
In 2017, Indiana was the state with the second-highest coal consumption. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that burning coal provided 69% of Indiana’s generated electricity in 2018.
Indiana is stuck in the past, and Republican politicians and coal lobbyists are trying to keep it that way even as utilities are making plans for a more sustainable future.
Last week, Bloomington-based Hoosier Energy announced that it will retire a coal-burning power plant in 2023 and transition to other energy sources like natural gas, solar and wind, according to the Zionsville Times Sentinel. This would affect 185 employees.
However, renewable energy has the potential to create many more jobs than would be lost.
A report by consulting firm Wood Mackenzie predicts that Indiana could secure $5 billion in investment and 25,000 jobs in the next 10 years if the state meets the rising demand for renewable energy.
House Bill 1414 would merely delay the inevitable. The energy industry is already shifting to cleaner energy sources, and this should be encouraged before coal causes even more damage to Hoosiers’ health and environment.
Exposure to the pollutants released by coal has been linked to serious health conditions such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer, stroke, heart disease and heart attacks, according to a study by Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Coal is the most polluting of the fossil fuels and releases the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy, according to National Geographic. The Environmental Protection Agency stated that carbon dioxide constitutes 65% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Clean, renewable energy avoids many health risks and does not detrimentally change the climate. The proposed bill does not make sense in the context of the environment or the economy.
Allyson McBride (she/her) is a sophomore studying English and political science. She plans to go to law school.
