Authored by: Senator Rick Niemeyer     Referred to: Senate Committee on Environmental Affairs

The gist: This bill proposes many concerning and substantive changes that dramatically limit the ability of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to protect human and environmental health.

Advocate: Use this form to send your legislator a message opposing SB 277.

HEC’s analysis: SB 277 affects all of Title 13 of the Indiana Code, “Environment.” It offers some good code clean-up measures (eliminating outdated code and rule references), but its key proposals outline substantive and worrisome changes to the state’s current environmental management regime.

The bill was heard on January 12 in Senator Niemeyer’s Environmental Affairs Committee and passed out of committee on a vote of 5-3. HEC testified against the bill, laying out these chief concerns:

  • There are more than 40 instances in which the bill seeks to change mandatory actions by IDEM (“the agency shall“) to discretionary actions (“the agency may“).  Most of these changes could result in reduced protections for Hoosiers from environmental harms.  
  • The bill proposes to eliminate IDEM authority to review of permit applications for nuclear power facilities, leaving a massive regulatory gap at the same moment IGA members are pushing for development and deployment of small nuclear power generators.  
  • The bill seeks to add the new and extremely vague factor of “burdensome” to IDEM’s review of protective regulations, without defining “burdensome” or specifying what constitutes a “burdensome” regulation. If SB 277 is enacted, the “burdensome” consideration would join Indiana’s existing “no more stringent than federal law” standard for environmental protections. As the federal government continues its effort to void its own environmental laws of stringency, HEC is concerned everyday Hoosiers will bear the real burden of this proposed change rather than polluters.
  • In general, SB277 ties IDEM’s  regulatory policies too closely to federal environmental policy, which, under the current administration, is shrinking faster than the planet’s glaciers.

HEC will continue to work in opposition to this bill as it moves to the Senate Committee on Appropriations and eventually to the Senate floor.

To access the full text of this bill, click here. To see the latest actions on this bill, click here.


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