Indiana Governor Pence Allows Retrograde Anti-Efficiency Bill to Become Law
Rebecca Stanfield, NRDC
It’s extremely disappointing that Gov. Pence has allowed legislation to become law in Indiana that dismantles several years of progress toward building a functioning market for energy efficiency in the state.
As Gov. Pence points out in his statement, efficiency saves money for Indiana citizens, because reducing demand for electricity is cheaper than building new power plants. Efficiency cuts waste, and also improves service reliability, creates jobs and improves air quality.
With the new law, Indiana government is promoting more waste, higher costs to customers and more harmful air pollution. That is a law that deserved a veto!
Meanwhile, the rest of the Midwest is moving ahead to cut electricity waste, which will save money, create jobs and reduce pollution.
- Illinois utilities will reduce electricity demand by 1.5 million mwh per year over the next three years – enough to power 130,000 homes. Chicago-based ComEd has saved its customers more than $700 million through energy efficiency.
- Michigan utilities are also reducing their electricity sales by more than one percent per year through energy efficiency. The Michigan utilities saved a net of $800 million in the first three years of its programs.
- Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Ohio are all using energy efficiency as a resource and capturing the benefits for their customers.
Indiana’s new law deprives the people of Indiana these economic benefits. It is a move backwards, out of step with the region and the nation, and the public interest.
We hope the state’s leadership will quickly reinstate these programs and minimize damage to the state’s emerging efficiency market, and put opportunity back in place for Indiana.
This post originally appeared on the NRDC’s Switchboard blog. Author Rebecca Stanfield, Deputy Director for Policy, Midwest Program, Chicago
