Okay, well evening and welcome to this month's edition of the Environmental Sustainability Committee.

And then go up to the committee members to my root to my left.

So uh Councilor Boots, you want to start?

Sure.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh Dan Boots sitting in as a guest tonight, uh, District 3 counselor.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mike Dilk, District 24.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Jesse Brown, District 13, near East Side.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair Briandelini, District 2 on the North Side.

And I'm John Barth, Chairman of the Committee.

Um, so the two things um this evening.

Uh one is a presentation um from Indiana Conservation Voters and Citizens Action Coalition about the General Assembly and the outcomes of the General Assembly uh when it comes to environmental matters.

And then secondly, um an update on the Thrive Indianapolis plan.

So I know you didn't hear the words data centers in there, but I see there's a lot of folks here who I know um who thought there was uh hearing on data centers, but there's not.

This the we never had a hearing on data centers, so that was um inaccurate.

So um there is reference to data centers in the legislation um portion uh of the of the presentation um related to um matters have to do with the General Assembly.

So if you're here, because you thought there was a uh uh hearing on data centers, you want to raise your hand.

Oh, just one person.

Well, because um uh I was gonna uh uh I didn't want people to come down and not have the opportunity to express themselves.

So if if you're opposed to data centers, why don't you stand up?

Just okay.

So there are there's a lot of people here.

So I guess this is what I would invite you to do.

Those of you who are here to uh regarding data centers, and because um we we don't actually have uh specific uh item related to data centers.

What I'm gonna suggest is between these two presentations, um if you could uh deputize uh one person to represent your group and come up and express your views to to the members of the council who are here.

That way I want to make sure you have the opportunity to share your do your thoughts with us.

But I but again, because we're not um uh having uh that matter on the agenda, I don't want to spend uh a huge amount of time on it.

But um, please coordinate and then after the this first presentation, I'll ask someone to come up and share your thoughts on on the data centers and maybe it's Decatur Township, maybe it's Pike Township, um, whatever you you might want to share.

We'll have two minutes to do that um in in between the two presentations.

Does that sound okay?

Okay.

And and and I also appreciate you coming down to the Environmental Sustainability Committee.

You're invited to come every month, even when it's not um uh suddenly 50 degrees and then 20 degrees.

So uh that the fact that you came uh it shows you how how passionate you are about this issue.

Okay.

So with that, let me turn it over to our two speakers, um, Kieran and Delaney um to update us about the um Indiana General Assembly.

I want to thank them for coming um uh and for the work they do um over at the General Assembly.

I've I've worked over there intermittently for a long time, and it's uh it's a complicated process and it really takes a lot of dedication and effort to stay on top of the issues and to get to know all the legislators and to really uh dig into the minute changes that get made from time to time.

So uh thanks for your work and thanks for your presentation.

So if I can turn it over to you and you could uh introduce yourselves and then go ahead and get started to light the that one.

Okay.

Um hello, my name is Delaney Barbara Kwan.

I'm the government affairs director at Indiana Conservation Voters.

And I'm uh Colonel, the executive director at Citizens Action Coalition.

Okay.

Um we can go to the next slide.

This is just kind of our contact information and introduction, and then the next slide.

Um kind of hard to read, but this is just a broad overview so we can get to the meat of the presentation.

But this shows how Indiana's energy generation fuel mix has changed over time in the last uh decade or so, largely from coal generation to less coal generation and more natural gas, but you'll see some other energy mixes in there as well.

Yeah, I would just add that this is only look at the last decade, but when I started doing this work over 20 years ago, Indiana was effectively 96% reliant on coal-fired power.

And for the most part, we've effectively replaced most of that coal-fired power, shifted to gas, another fossil fuel.

Just a point to note.

Yes.

Next slide.

Okay.

Um moving into uh what kind of passed and happened this past uh legislative session.

This is a little bit outdated since we've concluded and now bills have actually been signed into law.

Um, but we'll focus still largely on the same points.

Um a big one being HB 1002 energy affordability.

This was authored by Representative Schockweiler from Noblesville.

Um it includes multiple pieces, some that provide more immediate relief to uh low-income households, specifically LIHEAP households.

Um is some summer shut-off protections for high heat index days over 95.

Um you cannot be disconnected during that time.

Um, and we'll see how that uh begins to be implemented.

In addition, there is a mandate for each utility to have a low-income program which is very flexible and kind of left up to the utilities and the regulatory commission on how that looks like for each utility customer.

Um, but if you qualify for the existing LIHEAP and energy assistance program, you can apply for that and get additional assistance through your utility once that becomes available.

Um those are two kind of more immediate pieces in that bill.

Uh and then there's also a different uh rate making structure than what we have been doing, which Kerwin is the expert on rate making and all things rate making and how we've done it for many years.

Uh but this shifts it to a three-year multi-year rate plan, which is going to be kind of stair step implemented by different utilities.

So they'll come in every three years for a specific uh rate, could be increase or decrease and using kind of future protection models every three years instead of maybe every year or whenever they need to or feel like they need to, um, and then implementing some performance incentive metrics to try to guide the utilities to stress more on one affordability and two on kind of resiliency pieces on responding to off-nominal events, uh how fast you can get back online and things like that.

It's a very broad overview.

Um, but those impacts and seeing how utilities respond to that different rate making structure and incentives will take some time.

Yeah, I would just add quickly on the multi-year rate plan.

I I think while it's a very modest approach to what's called performance-based rate making or changing the way in which we set rates in Indiana.

What we did like about it was that it's uh it was at least a recognition that how we're doing things today simply isn't working, evidenced by extreme utility affordability crisis.

So while it's a modest approach, while we're sort of indifferent to the idea of multi-year rate plans or performance-based rate making, it is a recognition that this cost plus regulation we have today where we simply reward the utilities for spending money is leading to extremely high utility bills.

Um yeah, this uh unfortunately was an old presentation.

We didn't get an updated one to you guys in time, but it has on their House Bill 1333 or land use and development.

That had some controversial stuff in there uh dealing with uh sighting uh uh and and some data center stuff.

That bill ultimately died.

There was some language from 1333 that did uh appear in another bill.

It was House Bill uh 1210, and that uh that language with respect to data centers was merely about uh a one percent sales tax on the data centers on the electricity used by the data center that will then be delivered to the local community hosting that data center.

That language was added to House Enrolled Act uh 1210.

And then there was another bill, House Enrolled Act 1406, a tax and fiscal matter bill that also spoke to data centers that directs the IFA in concert with the IEDC to study and analyze the various different tax incentives that have been provided, data centers and other large projects to see its impact on electricity use and prices, its impact on water, and its impact on local economic development of that community.

Uh that report is supposed to be delivered to the General Assembly by uh November 5th of 2026.

And then we have also had in there as an active bill, Senate Bill 7 carbon sequestration.

That bill ultimately died and was not heard in the House.

That was a bill that most of us supported that would have required if you're going to capture CO2 in one county, transport and store that CO2 in another county, the county executive of the county in which it was going to be stored, would have had to approve that project, but that that bill ultimately did not pass.

And then quickly on House Bill 1368, that's another bill dealing with was called carbon, but that's carbon capture and sequestration, and what that bill effectively does.

It directs the Department of Natural Resources in the N a DNR to file at EPA to seek primacy over the issuance of class six permits.

Class six permits are the specific permits used in carbon capture and storage.

Right now they're issued by the EPA exclusively.

I think there are seven or eight states that currently do have primacy, meaning the state issues those permits and not the federal government.

This bill requires DNR to file for approval or for primacy of issuing those uh those C those those class six permits uh in order to do CCS.

Okay.

Um to Senate Bill 240, uh surplus interconnection service.

So this is directing kind of utilities and their planning processes to look at their interconnection capacity.

So when we're doing grid planning, um we work in a larger regional transmission network, and we call it the queue.

When you want to get a new generation project online, you have to go through the queue through your transmission organization network to be able to kind of plug into the grid, and um you get a certain uh capacity margin for that interconnection, and there are some interconnections where not all of that allowed capacity is being used.

So there's extra to go around.

Um, and there's a lot of uh, especially clean energy projects, solar projects, wind projects in the queue that are smaller that could go and fit into that kind of interconnection capacity, so that surplus interconnection uh to get new generation online faster or cheaper generation online faster.

Um then Senate Bill 258 slash 277 nuclear facility permits.

Um it was in both of these bills.

Uh ultimately it was taking out of Senate Bill 277, which was IDEMS agency bill, but uh remained and signed into law with uh SB 258, which basically looks at kind of IDEMs responsibility on uh nuclear waste and nuclear facilities, and took that out of code.

Um of it was outdated with radioactive waste, other things would have allowed uh for more public uh hearings on nuclear facilities, and the state still has jurisdictions and rights to look at and consider other environmental um aspects of nuclear facilities besides the radioactive waste, which is under the federal government.

And then okay.

And then we have quickly HB 1150, which does impact uh the city of Indianapolis, local regulations.

This um kind of preempts the uh thriving buildings program here that it can no longer be mandatory to implement uh energy benchmarking of buildings.

It can only be voluntary.

And briefly, just some of the dead bills.

There were multiple bills that consider different options for uh residential customers and renters to partake and try to kind of cut their energy bills.

Um SB 74 and HB 1084, which is plug-in solar.

Right now, you have to pay to interconnect a larger residential solar array, but these plug-in solar uh panels, which uh are being rolled out in Utah right now, you can essentially plug into an outlet or an upgraded outlet and kind of offset your energy usage.

Um you are kind of communicating to the utility that you don't want to get paid back for any energy that goes onto the grid, but realistically there shouldn't be a lot that goes on the grid because it's really only offsetting a small portion of your energy use.

So looking at ways we can get third-party investors, uh not just utilities to invest in small energy uh facilities, usually less than five megawatts, um, including community solar that uh individuals and renters can subscribe to and get a bill credit directly on their bill, which requires some communication uh between the utility uh and uh the community energy providers.

So that kind of requires legislation.

Anything else?

Okay.

Next slide.

Yeah, understanding our time is limited.

This is an incredibly ambitious slide.

So I'll be I'll be uh brief and take any questions folks might have.

But what we try to do out here is just lay out the current policies that are in place in Indiana with respect to energy policy, uh, and what we see uh in the state of Indiana is really policies that have been extremely pro-utility, uh anti-consumer.

On the left, we have a long list of what are what are called trackers, trackers are uh otherwise known as adjustable rate mechanisms or bill rioters, those are fees that are added onto your bill on top of the base rates that you are charged to pay for things such as construction of new generation, uh, such as grid modernization projects, upgrades to the T and D system, uh, including advanced metering infrastructure, otherwise known as smart meters.

And it also includes things like pipeline uh improvements and expansions, but basically what trackers do is allow utilities to charge you for things as they're being built, as they're being constructed, as they're just thinking about them, and effectively turning ratepayers into, as CAC and other consumer advocates like to say, invail involuntary financiers of utility companies, and we believe that uh the explosion of these trackers, especially since 2011, really have led to where we are today with respect to uh high utility bills, very, very pro consumer, very very pro utility rather, and the other thing that trackers do is uh ties the hands of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

We created these regulatory commissions to regulate investor-owned utilities to act as a surrogate to competition, competition in the absence thereof.

We give utility companies uh the privilege of a uh exclusive monopoly service territory with a captive rate base, a guaranteed rate of return, and in exchange for that we said you have to subject yourself uh to strong regulations to keep the whims and wishes, if you will, of companies with a fiduciary responsibility that are shareholders in check.

And the more we pass legislation that says the commission shall approve, the commission shall approve, the commission shall approve, the more we whittle away the primary competition that the investor-owned utilities have, and those are the regulators.

Furthermore, I'll move along to the next slide, which is about behind the meter things, which is the other competition uh that utility companies have.

What compet other competition do they have?

Uh number one, using less energy, otherwise known as energy efficiency, and number two, customers generating their own energy.

Uh regulation, energy efficiency, customer-owned generation represents uh the competition to the utilities, if you will.

And the state of Indiana really has done everything they can at the behest of the utility industry to tie the hands of that competition, not only the regulators, but also when we canceled energizing Indiana, we repealed Mitch Daniels, that raging environmentalist Governor Mitch Daniels had the strongest uh energy efficiency standards in the Midwest, created energizing Indiana that was working.

We were seeing for the first time a downward trend in monthly utility bills.

We were seeing a downward trend in demand on the grid.

Uh and when Mike Pence took office, they passed Senate Roll Act 340, canceled energizing Indiana, repealed the energy efficiency resource standard.

A few years later, we had a good net metering policy in the state of Indiana that was really enabling homeowners, farmers, schools, businesses to install primarily solar, but other renewable energy generation on their properties to reduce their energy bills, take control of their energy cost.

We decided in 2017 to not only repeal net metering, but statutorily prohibit net metering in the state of Indiana.

Even if a utility wants to offer net metering, they are statutorily prohibited to do so.

We replaced it with what's called uh an EDG tariff or excess distributed generation tariff that rather than uh compensating the owners of those systems at a one-to-one retail swap, basically the price you pay the utility for your power is the price you were credited for the power you put back on the grid.

Now uh customers get uh a very small percentage of what they used to get, basically making it very economically difficult uh to install uh renewable energy on your property.

And then the last thing we wanted to touch on real quick is just the siting conundrum in the State of Indiana.

Uh by that we mean the siting of of uh energy generation resources where effectively uh the utilities and others, if it's thermal power, if it's pipelines, if it's carbon capture and storage, if it's large transmission and distribution, we've got siding policy.

Utilities have eminent domain, not the case with renewables, not for wind, not for solar, not for storage.

Over half the counties in Indiana have some sort of restrictive ordinance on the siting of renewables, making it very, very difficult to site renewables.

So long story short, uh, you know, the outcomes that this legislative session didn't do much to help clean energy uh in the state of Indiana, didn't do much to help uh competition in the state of Indiana and what we have in Indiana uh really is tail scales tilted uh in the wrong direction.

For better or worse, we have a governor and a new chairman of the IURC that is least is is acknowledging the issue, is uh they they're making strong words, so we'll see how things progress.

But if you ask Citizens Action Coalition, it's this tilted scale of policy, it's this lack of competition that we have in the State of Indiana that has led us, uh this pancaking effect, if you will, on utility bills led us to the place we are today, uh, with unaffordable electric bills and very low renewable penetration uh in the state of Indiana.

And with that, I think our time is probably expired.

So, number one, thank thank you again for being here from the presentation um and thanks for the work you do over at the State House.

Um I don't I don't think you had it listed, but there I believe wasn't there a um proposal that that would pass successfully that um further limited IBEM's ability to regulate not necessarily in environmental regulations in general, not power specifically.

Am I right about that?

Uh yes, that was uh Senate Bill 277, the item agency bill, which uh passed on very slim margins throughout uh its period.

There were some changes made throughout the process, but it uh severely limits items ability um in certain aspects of environmental regulation in making a lot of what they do or the commissioner's decisions discretionary.

Thank you.

Um specific to I want to um uh uh respect the folks who came here today about data centers.

There was a data center proposal that made an adjustment to the taxing uh and incentivized uh local participation.

Can you explain that?

I know it's not specifically what we asked you to talk about today, but if you have the information on that, I think it would be useful to hear that.

Yeah, well, what what ultimately passed was in House Enrolled Act 1210, and that is a requirement that a data center after July 1st, 2026.

So it wouldn't apply to existing data centers or probably proposals that are in the work, but after July 1st, 2026, the data center would be required on a, I believe on a quarterly basis to pay effectively a one percent tax, but only on the electricity that they use uh to the county treasurer in that in that county.

So a one percent tax on electricity consumed.

There were various iterations of that bill.

One of them had a one percent tax on all the data center equipment and the electricity.

At one point they were talking about a one and a half percent tax on all that stuff, and ultimately, in the end, what passed was a one percent tax, but just on electricity uh consumed.

There was a version that effectively required the data center to provide their electric bill to the county treasurer, so the county treasurer could audit that one percent.

Big tech does their thing behind the scenes.

That requirement to submit their electric bill came out.

So now it just says one percent.

I'm not sure how folks are going to trust but verify, but ultimately uh I think that was an additional you know, incentive to local communities, I think, probably in response to also a lot of the lot of the public pushback as well.

I would imagine.

It was an incentive.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate you um uh going into those other areas.

Um uh members of the committee and and our guests, uh, questions.

Councilor Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thanks for the presentation.

Uh always amazing how much uh detail you all can remember and keep keep track, even after the session's ended.

Well, the session does reduce your IQ significantly.

So take some time to refresh.

Fair enough.

Um I had a couple questions, but both are just sort of tangential to what you presented on, so to the extent you can.

Um first is kind of following on Chairman Barth's question about data centers.

I've seen conflicting reports about how much the increased electric bills can be attributable to the large AI data centers.

Um the main counter argument I've seen is that oh well really a lot of it was just the grid modernization, which you mentioned in the trackers.

Uh to me, a lot of the reason for the grid expansion is for the AI data centers.

But I don't know if you could speak to you know a rough estimate what percentage of these increases are being driven by AI data centers.

Well, I don't know that we can give you a percentage necessarily, but but we've identified multiple cases where significant amounts of investments in the TND grid have been directly passed on to customers, whether it's the Meta Data Center down in Jeffersonville that that Duke ratepayers are paying for, the Google data center up in Fort Wayne, that I and M customers are experiencing uh increases in transmission costs.

But uh we have a lot of those uh numbers, and we've seen both of the RTOs, especially the PJM RT RTO in the in the Northeast citing increased significant increased transmission cost from data centers as being the primary driver uh of electricity costs.

So I don't know we have an exact percentage, but a a significant amount.

That's very helpful.

One more question if you don't mind, Mr.

Chair.

Um and this is again a little tangential, but a lot of constituent pushback right now about the AES uh proposed deal with the consortium, including BlackRock.

Um I know you had mentioned that you know our energy regulators, uh IURC have a lot of that shall language where they have less flexibility and less regulatory um ability.

But what what differences do you anticipate ratepayers to see or like average constituents to see with a now private uh electric investor on utility?

Well, I mean, we're obviously very, very concerned.

You're talking about a private equity firm whose primary responsibility is to deliver shares or deliver uh you know earnings and profits to their investors and squeeze as much profit as they can out of those assets, and should the sale go through, one of those assets will unfortunately be the public utility here in the city of Indianapolis.

Now, granted, um folks should understand that they are still required to be regulated fully by the IURC just as they are today.

So that construct doesn't necessarily change other than the IURC still governed by those very pro-utility statutes uh that we see today.

So I mean we we have a lot of concerns, and it was very disappointing that you know the idea that the state of Indiana grants these franchises to these monopolies and yet doesn't grant the regulatory commission the authority to approve or reject uh these acquisitions and these mergers makes no sense.

That's been a core issue for CAC back in 1974 when AEP first bought the Fort Wayne City Lights Municipal Utility was working to get the General Assembly to give the IURC authority to approve or reject those transfers.

AES also has a utility in Ohio in Dayton, where the Ohio Public Utility Commission has to approve that merger.

Here in the state of Indiana, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission does not have to uh approve that merger.

Folks were aware of that at the State House.

There were proposals from both sides of the aisle to address that.

Uh this session, those were ignored.

There were amendments proposed uh that were voted down.

So it's unfortunate that there's a good chance that oops, sorry, that this uh this my medicine that this uh this sale may go through.

So yeah.

Thank you.

Um let's give you a second to take your medicine.

Uh no, it's it's all right to my car.

Uh other comments or questions.

Okay.

Listen, again, thank you both for coming.

Um really appreciated.

And um both your organizations have been really helpful to this committee over the years.

So um uh we appreciate it and we'll look forward to staying uh connected.

All right, thanks for having us.

Thank you.

Okay, now um back to uh the folks who came uh for data center discussion as as noted earlier.

We don't have a specific data center item, but I uh I want to acknowledge that you're here and that you're here to express your views.

So did you identify someone who's gonna come up and speak on data centers?

There's no obligation, but because you're here, I wanted to give you the opportunity.

Yeah, okay.

Please tell us your name, uh, what part of the city you live in approximately.

And uh you have about two minutes to talk.

Yes, thank you.

My name's Ashley Hooley.

I live in Decatur Township.

I describe myself as an average neighbor who just started talking to other neighbors when the proposed data center came in.

Um I'm curious about data center definitions and how we're classifying data centers.

Um the proposal right now in Decatur Township, the capacity of the hyperscale data center that's being proposed when you compare that to others.

It's just concerning.

So I was curious if this committee or if you're hearing anything with the MDC just for our awareness around how data centers are being defined and classified and um how that is being considered when looking at different zonings.

That's a zoning matter, and um zoning um proposals all come, they start with the MDC.

But um as uh this matter um uh is so important in our zoning doesn't address it.

There's been a group working um with the city um rethinking our zoning and um uh putting forward a vision of how the zoning um could progress with a clear definition of what um data centers are and then sort of gradiating them out from like small, medium and large, and then what the requirements would be per each one of those.

So that's um I know what I just said sounds easy, but it's actually very complicated as you just alluded to.

So we're in the middle of that, and so um I don't want to put any timelines on it other than to say it's a high priority and we are working in earnest with the um with the with the city on this.

But when that process starts, it'll start at the MDC will eventually come to the council, it won't come to this committee.

Um it'll come to a different committee.

Um but I'm sure there'll be plenty of coverage of that and and you'll have the opportunity to weigh in in a meeting just like this.

Okay, thank you.

If I could just urge, you know, there's a lot of sense of urgency and a lot of different cases.

Um when I look at current energy consumption and the data centers that are being proposed, it's really scary to think how quickly this is all happening in our state.

So I would just respectfully ask for some urgency around this.

Thank you.

Yeah, I I I agree with you, and I and I think we we we do have it, but we also need to do it right.

Um we don't want to put something out there that that um makes things worse or isn't strong in the way you'd like it to be strong.

Yes.

And so we need to we need to take some time to be thorough and disciplined about it at the same time moving along with with some discipline and urgency.

I agree.

We're on the same page on that.

Yeah, and that's why the MDC should not approve our case for Decatur on Wednesday of this week, because that is something that requires a lot of diligence and is needed.

Thank you.

I again I want to thank everybody for coming um uh uh on on this matter.

I I appreciate it, and I know that um your advocacy is uh uh bringing the the this uh issue to a lot of people's attention who may not have been paying attention.

So you're you're doing good work.

Yeah, thank you.

I know that the proposed data center in our area, it's gonna impact utilities across central Indiana, especially with the other projects right now.

Across the Midwest.

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Mr.

Chair, may I um offer a comment on something I've observed recently with my constituents and data centers.

You may.

Thank you.

Um I have had this comment come from more than one person in my district, and so the process for which the council is involved in approving data centers.

Um I don't I'm not I'm not speaking for you specifically, but uh towards my constituents that seemed confused is that um if it goes in front of the MDC, um if the district counselor goes along with it, then the city council can't we don't have a vote on it.

Um if the district counselor disagrees with the MDC's decision, they have the opportunity to what we say call it down and bring it in front of the full council to hear essentially the MDC case again.

Um but again, I think folks in my district were a little confused saying like vote this or vote that, but there is no vote unless we get to the incentives portion of it, and then it comes before the full council.

But in terms of like allowing the data center to be in one area of the city or not, if it requires that zoning change and it goes in front of the MDC, it's it's really within the hands of that district counselor.

And so I just wanted to make it clear that we don't have a vote necessarily on every data center case, and I think that was something that um my constituents were have been confused about.

So thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Council Boots uh have a comment.

Um and to the point of advocacy, um uh you have successfully turned a non-data center meeting into a data center meeting.

So good job.

So we're gonna turn it over to the councillor boots.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

It's just a follow-up uh on that.

Uh another reason we do not always have a vote is because if it is a variance request, which is what's happening in the Decatur situation, that never comes back before the council.

So the MDC decision is the final decision.

If it's a zoning change request, that is a change of the county law, and therefore we are the legislative body.

So if it's a zoning change, it then does come back before the council if, as counselor Delaney mentioned, the domiciled counselor calls it down.

If that counselor does not, then historically we have no power to even change any vote in that decision as well.

Um we're not I'm sorry, we're not really having like QA time.

We're just yeah, I just wanted to make one comment if that's okay, just briefly.

Yeah, just 30 seconds.

Yes, it's just very concerning to us that an I2 can go through a variance because that opens it up to any I2 if going through any variance.

Um so that's just very disturbing to Decatur Township.

Thank you guys for being here.

Thank you.

Okay.

Now we're gonna proceed to the next uh agenda item.

Um we um uh one of the things that we do in this committee is um work closely with uh um uh the city's Office of Environmental Sustainability on the implementation of the Thrive Indianapolis plan.

And um they have been doing this work for a long time uh developing this plan and implementing this plan and and then um reporting it out um in this committee so the people of Indianapolis know the status and how it's proceeding and annually we receive a report um uh on the status and so we're gonna turn it over to the director to uh give us an update on uh how the Thrive Indianapolis Plan is proceeding.

Thank you, Chairman Barth, and thank you, counselors, for being here with us, and thank you to our community for being here to hear this presentation.

My name's Mo McReynolds.

I'm the director of the Office of Sustainability for the City of Indianapolis.

Um I have an excellent team that's been trying to doing our best to partner with our community partners throughout our community to uh deliver on the promises and 59 action items within Thrive Indianapolis.

As a brief overview, we're gonna tell you a little bit about the reporting we did last year, a little bit about the Thrive Action items that have been completed.

I also want to mention that outside of the work you're seeing here, our office does a number of reporting uh necessary organizations that are go through national and international reporting um qualifications, including ACEE, CDP, otherwise known as a carbon disclosure project, and then an every three year greenhouse gas emissions inventory.

We also do a number of media relations and digital media content.

And one thing I can uh clue you in on is that we're gonna we've evolved some of our um logos and uh communication pieces, and so you'll see some of that uh in the future.

This is our team.

We've got four excellent people, all of which you'll see behind me that are on this small but mighty team where I say we are a GSD, get stuff done.

The 2024 Thrive Indianapolis Annual Report was um 27 annual data points and 21 every three year points, nine of which their uh metrics surpassed their 2025 targets.

So these were metrics that were promised as a part of the original Thrive Indianapolis plan, and every year since 2021, we have put out an annual report.

So this past year in 2025, we published the 2024 report encompassing the last year's data.

We are going to um move into a new development phase of these annual reports, and in this year in 2026, we will not put out a traditional annual report.

We are evolving our GHG inventory software, and we will be moving instead into a much more data-based uh scientific target-based work that actually charts us toward uh carbon neutrality, which um we'll I will get to on a future slide.

But uh here are the we occasionally like to give ourselves medals, but these are for our community and not for ourselves.

That these are 59 action items that have been completed with either city staff, city partners, individual constituents.

These are excellent achievements throughout our community over the past five years.

Uh again, just to this is the logo we're going to we've we're going to update just to give you a little bit of a reminder as to some of this look and feel.

We specifically focus on resilience and sustainability, and that also is reflected in our overarching goals, including as I said, uh incre uh achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and that's where I'm was discussing the new software and the new projection out that we're doing within um that particular measurement that we will release uh later this year.

And then increasing community resilience and prioritizing equity and policy planning and project implementation.

That's particularly important.

So that's not just the sustainability, but that's the resilience part where we like to talk about our community not only bouncing back from things that experiences, but bouncing forward.

How can we get those folks in a different and more progressive version of the um standards that they've experienced?

This is the framework of the plan, just to remind you eight various themes that we're gonna touch on one at a time.

I'll try not to belabor this.

Umilar to most national organizations, international organizations, states, local governments, federal governments, you're seeing a very similar breakdown in GHG emissions.

And so this is a lot of what our Thrive and our work focuses on.

Most of that being from the built environment space, buildings and the systems that power them, as you see, about two-thirds there, another third from the transportation section, and then a very small but the most increasingly quick growing section being from the waste sector.

As a reminder, we uh Mayor Hogsett committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 in 2017.

In 2019, the Thrive Plan was published, and in 2021, we embarked on our first ordinance passage.

In the built environment section, from that ordinance passage came the Thriving Buildings program, which has seen incredible success since its thriving since its passage of the ordinance and then subsequent program.

In 2025, specifically, I'll call your attention to that.

We saw a five times increase in the compliance rate from the previous year.

Michael Milner is our project manager and has done an incredible job with this program.

Delaney in the previous presentation mentioned House Bill 1150 that, as she said, prohibits the county or municipal municipality, any unit from adopting or enforcing a utility usage data ordinance.

So essentially moving our program into a voluntary stage.

We have a number of pivot strategies that we still think can achieve very a lot of the success, including reaching out to all sorts of buildings rather than just the above 50,000 square feet, which was the threshold reflected in the ordinance, increased stakeholder and outreach engagement, and then really trying to create what are the resources and the reasons why energy efficiency can be seen from the original measurement of energy benchmarking and utility benchmarking.

In our economy section, we have an excellent partner in the Indian Energy Independence Fund.

So this is a green bank that was reflected in one of the Thrive Indianapolis action items.

They are not only making loans in the commercial space, but they've recently started doing residential lending.

So this is excellent work with as low as possible interest rates, and again, focusing on energy efficiency, renewable energies in this space around financing those things.

Also in the economy section, there is work around the Green Jobs Initiative, where Key Bank Foundation announced a 75,000, 70750,000 investment to help launch this green jobs initiative with uh 100 participants, specifically around the Has 40 certification, uh, and that was this past year.

Another per another uh partner we'd like to call out is Recycle Force, receiving half a million dollars in Brownfields job training, which um trained 75 students and placed uh 70 95 students placing in 75 jobs.

It will, thank you.

In the energy section, our office uh and our various city partners were able to make integrated resource planning comment on AES Indiana's integrated resource planning that has been about a year's worth of work and presentations by AES.

We provided comment to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission on this plan, specifically reflecting the Thrive Goals you've seen here.

AES Indiana's Peterburg Petersburg facility is um one of the last to be refueled, they call it from coal filed, coal fired units and onto fossil fuel or methane gas.

So again, just re-firing the uh refueling it.

And this uh puts Indiana ASND at the position to be the first Indiana utility essentially out of coal.

Also in the energy space, uh, we partnered with the Indiana IU Environmental Resilience Institute to bring a McKinney Climate Fellow this past year into our community and do some local education around heat pumps.

Heat pumps are especially useful because they are not only energy efficient, but they replace much many of the uses of a furnace in homes.

So that's improving air quality and as I said, energy efficiency.

Also in the energy space, we've partnered with a funder and an organization called IFF to put out and create the Thriving Nonprofits program.

If you can't tell, we like things thriving in our office as a part of our work.

This is an energy focused buildings assessment for nonprofits to look at their building space and assess where they can make energy efficiencies or employ in renewable energy.

This was a one-for-one match where we were able to partner or essentially make grants to 10 nonprofits in this first cohort.

So, example, they made things like uh energy efficiency LED lighting upgrades, solar panels, energy efficiency appliances, HVACs, and heat pumps.

And there you'll see one organization that worked on some of their doors and air quality control, and then over here, there were the implementation of brand new appliances that were much more energy efficient.

We are, and we've also been refunded for that or funded again for that, and so we will launch uh cohort number two coming very soon.

In the food and urban agriculture space, this is simply a reflection of our partnership with the community nutrition and food policy section of Office of Public Health and Safety, not taking any credit for their work, nor is our office responsible for all of these things, simply uh speaking to them as parts of Thrive Indianapolis and collaborations with our many partners, both internally and externally.

In the natural resources space, there's a whole lot of advocacy advocacy happening here.

There's an excellent partnership with continued clean choices clear water advocacy that DPW employs as a suite of educational and pledge related tools to get citizens both activated on understanding their water impacts but also committed to making actions.

If you'll recall, maybe from some parks work that Grassy Creek and Riverside Adventure Park were both big uses and reuses of particular parts of land that are both publicly accessible now and preserving them for continued uses.

And then last but not least in the natural resources section, the US Day Urban System Urban and Community Forestry Grant that will happen through June of 2029 amongst a few of its many highlights includes increasing native trees and shrubs by about 8,000 and removing about 1,200 hazardous trees in our community.

And that's all being done between KIB, the DPW Urban Forestry Program, and Office of Land Stewardship.

Excuse me, in the public health and safety section, our office maintains and operates the no zone program.

So that's when we're talking about ozone in our air and PM 2.5 particulate matter under two and a half microns.

So essentially talking about an exterior air quality and how that affects Central Indiana's air quality.

We are entering into that no zone season here coming soon that happens between about May and October.

So potentially keep your eyes open for when those days are happening and what you can do to help mitigate air quality in our community.

On the right, you'll see a few various actions, including walking and biking more, using vehicles less, waiting until it's cool to refuel your vehicle, waiting until it's cool to power lawn equipment, to use powered lawn equipment, avoiding idling, and looking out for anyone with respiratory and cardiac issues.

Also in the public health and safety section, we have worked very closely with Mesa on completing the multi-hazard mitigation plan update in 2024.

Something else that came out of that was that Mesa is updating outdoor warning sirens, and so they have they're embarking on that replacement this year.

One really important thing that Mesa has that's an opportunity for residents to be engaged on extreme weather is to text MESA INDY to 67283 to receive those text alerts and especially on these public safety threats.

In the transportation and land use section, again, this is a little bit of an a la carte of just things that we want to highlight, including Pacers Bike Share, our excellent partner, Pacers Bike Share, establishing station, three stations at Butler, and creating a record amount of trips of 196,000 trips taken in 2025.

The niggle plate trail, as I'm sure a number of you were involved in, with 103 miles completed in Indianapolis and connecting that to Hamilton County as an excellent new resource and uh asset in our community.

And then something that is a huge part of our transportation and land use section is Indigo and the ways that we are accommodating to public transit.

And as you see here, the purple line in its first year as one of the most highly used uh routes in all of Indigo had about 800,000 riders in its first year, and then the next BRT line, bus rapid transit line in Indigo, the blue line is now under construction.

In the waste and recycling sector, um our office, along with Department of Public Works and Solid Waste and Policy and Planning, we're able to rebid over the last few years our solid waste recycle solid waste contracts, excuse me, and the way that that will that will bring into our community is a few new faces or organizations, including a new trash and hauling recycle trash and recycling hauler, excuse me, for all of residential areas except where the city services trash.

So if you are public customer or a WM customer in the past, LRS, uh Lakeshore Recycling Services, is now very likely your trash and recycling hauler.

And then if you were a city customer, you are still a city customer.

What's that will also bring into our community is by 2028, we will be trans um transitioning every one of 279,000 households to universal curbside recycling, which is a major undertaking, and again reflected as a goal in Thrive Indianapolis.

And then another um big piece of this puzzle for us was working with the processor.

So it's not just what recycling and what gets picked up at your curb, but it's how it gets processed.

And so WM, formerly waste management has invested in a 60 million dollar what we call MERF or materials recovery facility that's going to be doing the processing of all that recycling.

That is all of our themes.

Um I we love to shout out again our incredible sustainability and community partners that make so many of these action items happen for people in an office within city government could not make these things happen at all.

Um we are simply collaborating, connecting, and telling the story.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director.

Um a couple questions from me, and I'll turn it over to others.

Um this this is a question you'll be surprised about because we've talked about it um a lot over the years, but uh how involved is your team in helping doing the outbound communication to folks about the universal curbside change and or are we deferring to the haulers, or is the city gonna have a drum beat about it?

I'm just curious how how we're gonna do that outbound.

Yeah, that's an excellent question.

And again, no one department or organization would be able to reach uh, especially in the multiplicity of times that we will need to contact 279,000 homes to let them know over the next few years what will be happening with their solid waste services.

So it's really a collaboration, as I said, between the Department of Public Works in Solid Waste, Policy and Planning, our office, our hauler, and our processor.

So again, uh LRS, WM, and city partners will all be collaborating on this.

There are also some external organizations that are do recycling and solid waste advocacy throughout the nation that have seen us as a major target.

And so hopefully very soon we will be able to report back to you on this topic.

And uh they're bringing some dollars to our community to help us do that.

And then the only other question I wanted to to talk about was the um extreme weather preparedness and um uh there's just more uh to come um with with climate change is the biggest effect that we're gonna have probably is um extreme weather and um where some cities where they're already being hit much more dramatically in the southwest, for example, they have um built out teams uh to to uh to be on the ground and communicating.

Do you do you foresee the need for the city to be doing more investing along these lines?

I know in previous budgets we've invested more in um DPW's ability to respond to fell trees, for example, and um deal with water situations.

Um you foresee that as something the council needs to be playing needs to play in to deal with um in the coming years.

So great question.

We certainly collaborate with internal and external partners to help tell the story of how climate is affecting our community today.

And I often like to say, unfortunately, we're making this up as we go along.

So much of what we're experiencing with climate change and sustainability, we've never experienced before.

So we're having to be constantly responsive to these things.

There's no indication it's going to get better without doing nothing.

So we're gonna be need to needing to constantly both mitigating the effects of climate change but also adapting to what's already happened.

Thank you.

Um members of the committee, Councilor Delaney.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

I have one comment and then a question.

Um, as a public service announcement, anyone watching, I I personally subscribe to the Mesa text messages, and I wanted to come back to that.

Um what you do is you text M E S A I N D Y to the number 67283 to receive text alerts for public safety threats.

And I've signed up for them, and so um just yesterday I got one that said Mesa Indy Alert, severe thunderstorm warning, issued March 15th at 1129 p.m.

Eastern Daylight Time until March 16th at 1215 a.m.

Eastern Daylight Time by the National Weather Service, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Um for the most part, I just get those national weather service alerts, but it's nice to know when we do have severe weather threats coming to Indianapolis.

And um, so I just again you text a Mesa Indy, all one word to 67283.

Um that's my comment.

It's a great service, and so I wanted to make sure more people are aware of that.

Um yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, counselor.

I'm subscribed on both my phones, and it's really one of the least utilized services in terms of communication in in our city, and we are absolutely advocating that more folks be informed about what's coming to their area.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks to your suggestion.

I, and I'm looking around the room, multiple other people who probably uh have signed up tonight.

So good job.

We hope many others who are watching this both now and in the future.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then the second one is back, you have on your um waste and recycling slide right in the middle.

You have community drop-off recycling locations, clean, dry, loose, don't bag it.

Yeah absolutely thanks to your suggestion I and I'm looking around the room multiple other people who probably uh have signed up tonight so good job we hope many others who are watching this both now and in the future yeah absolutely and then the second one is back you have on your um waste and recycling slide right in the middle you have community drop off recycling locations clean dry loose don't bag it I wanted to come back to that because I had someone come up to me recently and complain about a drop off site um and that I've heard at parks meetings um this committee I it's a constant issue that kind of keeps coming up every year about folks dropping off regular trash and dumping and I was hoping you could just um describe the policy and what we need what we don't need and um just kind of go through that a little bit more yeah they're a big hairy issue I can't lie to you um that's why we've chosen to try to move a hundred and two hundred and seventy nine thousand households to curb side so that everyone is responsible for their own bin and not coupling you know a hundred families could put all of their perfectly recycled things in a community drop-off um location and if one person decides to come and throw a ton of uh you know roofing tiles in there it really contaminates that box to an extreme amount and we have understood this now and we have understood this for many years we can do our best to try to advocate advocate and educate um we've tried a number of different pivots to try to make those accessible as possible and uh in this as I said in the last couple years rebidding these solid waste contracts has been our opportunity to set a course along the way that will move 279 households to universal curbside thank you for um drawing that connection because I I hadn't done that and so I think that's a great answer and segue when that does come up so thank you for that and thanks to city leadership for moving forward with um the universal recycling so thank you and thank you Mr.

Chairman anyone else Councilor Brown and then Council Boots.

Thank you Mr.

Chair uh thanks as always for a great uh presentation Director Moe and thanks to your entire team I like want to say as often as I can I think you guys are criminally underfunded and understaffed and yet uh most constituents can't tell because you punch so hard above your weight um thank you again for that um I guess uh uh wanted to make that comment and then a couple quick questions one was about the thriving buildings and how the mandatory nature was just stripped out by the State House.

I would hope yeah maybe I guess don't break my heart if this isn't true but I would hope that large building owners made some complaints directly to your office first was there was there anything the council could have done to help bridge that gap um to like make that more of a conversation and less of a mom's mad at us go tell dad to change the rules I I just always hate when we have this conflict between the State House and the city council and if there's something we could be doing better I would like to do it.

Thanks.

Yeah it's hard you know um hindsight is 2020 and things happen at the Statehouse and you don't sometimes know where they come from we did as much as we could to advocate in fact over the last two sessions uh where we survived the 2024 legislative or the the most recent legislative session before this one and uh yeah just they had sharper knives this time and so they were able to move this into a more successful bill that passed with this is an amendment.

I I think uh if I can speak for both Michael and myself we're excited about the opportunities to pivot here.

It's unfortunate that other municipalities won't get the opportunity to have a program that they can enforce but I think there are examples of this throughout the nation that are utility benchmarking programs that are voluntary that are still fairly successful and we're excited to figure out what those strategies are awesome.

Yeah well again let us know how we can be helpful I think that one of the most important things that your whole team does is provide this kind of data for the whole city to kind of look ourselves in the mirror and figure out what we can be doing better.

So keep it up and let us know how we can help thank you.

Send building building owners our way and we're glad to try to figure out with them not only how to benchmark their utility data but what energy efficiencies can be found from that.

Council Boots thank you Mr.

Chairman thank you director McReynolds good to see you again.

You as well um comment and a question comment uh is the I'm very excited about the universal recycling um think that's a great idea I think uh between now and then though what I would suggest might be helpful would be uh a little bit greater um residential education on what is and what is not recyclable I am one who is guilty if it's not biodegradable or it does not come uh something that can compost I think it's recyclable and I know that's not true.

Um there are you know many classes of plastics and I as I understand it we only take a couple of the classes so if there's any way to better educate the public going forward infographics or something like that that we as counselors can include in our social media uh wink wink I have a newsletter going out next month and I'd love to have a primer on what truly is and is not recyclable under Marion County regulations.

Excellent.

We're glad to partner with you and and with anyone putting out information on that.

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, this partner, this national partner that is coming to our community and gonna help us with some funding to penetrate into the market.

You know, there's only so much that social media platforms where constituents have to volunteer to follow uh can do, and now we are able to um penetrate the market a little bit more in terms of reaching uh into folks in their homes, into their places of work, into their schools, into their houses of worship to spread a little bit more of this message, not only in the next about year and a half, but especially toward the 27-28 transition into universal curbside recycling.

Wonderful.

And then with respect to uh the um I think it's HBO 1250 that rendered Thrive Indy optional for 1150.

1150, I'm sorry.

But numbers, silly numbers.

Exactly.

They're laws now.

Um do you have any indication or feeling even or gut instinct on that rendering being rendered from mandatory to optional, the impact that's going to have on the program or the numbers of buildings or participants in the program.

You already sense I assume there's gonna be a decline.

Yeah, it's a great question.

I think we already had a number of voluntary building owners in our system, so we can of course expand our reach to, as I said, not only buildings over 50,000 square feet, which was our threshold for regulation uh for required participation, but to all buildings.

Uh we have about 600 buildings in the software that we measure this with, and in other communities, 600 buildings would be quite a good number.

We have about 2,000 buildings that were in our building list that were above that 50,000 square feet um threshold.

I'd say the most significant difference will be that we were going to collect extremely low one-time or second-time nominal fees that we were going to collect in a fund that we would then make grants for energy efficiencies within these participating building owners.

And at this we just won't be able to include that portion of our program.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

And then finally, um with with respect to the universal recycling, um, I I think I'm safe in saying uh the current program by which trash bins were collected and reissued, collected again, has been less than smooth.

And I am still yet today trying to get personal bins that were taken by the haulers and not returned.

Um it's been a nightmare, and my understanding is Republic has washed their hands and said, Too bad you fired us, so therefore I'm not lifting a finger to help with this program, and that poor LRS and DPW have to had to pick up the ball.

So I would just encourage you to do whatever can be done to make sure this next transition is smooth and that we hold the contractors responsible.

In my opinion, we should never let Republic walk away so readily and leave us with thousands of bins that we don't know what to do with.

And collecting bins that weren't, and as I understand too, Republic and many of these contractors don't even have information of who's paying for what.

We could not even track who has a recycling bin, who paid for it.

They've got one, but they didn't pay for it.

How do we know they have no records?

That's unbelievable to me that we have a contractor that's providing such a core service to our people and they're run like a cheap hot dog stand.

So I just hope we really put some microscopes on these next projects and make sure we're holding vendors to their contract and make sure we just avoid what is you know kind of embarrassing when I'm getting hassled by something and DPW won't do it, they can't do it, no one has a record.

That just is a terrible look for the city.

So yeah, I know that message and others like it have been certainly reached uh to the Department of Policy and Planning and Department of Public Works and to the Solid Waste Division of Department of Public Works.

If as you imagine, four people on this team are not necessarily associated with the operations factor of that, but we are certainly uh sensitive to that message.

And I hope you would have the grace that when we are transitioning 279,000 households, that every single one will not be done perfectly, but we are certainly interested in proper contract enforcement.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Uh thank you.

Good questions.

Uh Councilor Bruce.

One last opportunity for questions.

Okay.

Well, let me thank uh the director and your team.

Uh I suck in what uh Councilor Brown said.

You always punch above your weight and do a great job with a small team.

In fact, let's take a minute if you uh everyone who works um uh in the department, could you raise your hand so uh we can uh the folks at home can see you.

Thank you for your hard work and uh thanks for being prepared today and thanks to everyone for being here, and we'll wrap up today's meeting.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.