A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

HB 1006 is a big old mess of a bill. The digest description characterizes the bill as being about “entrepreneurial know-how.” I might be throwing a friend from LSA under the bus by calling out that title since, when I was there anyway, it was the LSA drafters who have to come up with the digest information. But, you have to give them something to work with, and this one isn’t really a concise, easily described bill.

The first part tells the Secretary of State to develop a web site that’s essentially one-stop shopping for a business to submit information to the State about the business’ formation, existence, or other activities for the purpose of complying with the requirements of state law, including requirements concerning pre-establishment; establishment; registration; licenses or permits; filings or reports; and
transacting payments or refunds. I stressed the “including” because that means that means the list isn’t exhaustive. It’s not clear that the website has to be sufficient to allow the business to submit all of its information to the State – but it’s also not clear that any exceptions are contemplated. All other state agencies are directed to assist the Secretary of State in this endeavor. Money in the electronic and enhanced access fund may be used to develop and maintain the website.

Next the bill the bill requires the IEDC (Indiana Economic Development Corp.) to include, in its annual report to the general assembly, methods for collaborating with local economic development organizations and with economic development agencies in contiguous states and also requires the IEDC to collaborate with those economic development agencies.

Now, the bill shifts gears even more dramatically and allows high schools to develop entrepreneurship curriculum and submit it to the state board of education for approval. Finally, the bill requires the commission for higher education to inventory entrepreneurship programs conducted by colleges and display the inventory on the commission’s web site for the use of students, after consulting with the department of workforce development and the Indiana economic development corporation.

Two Associated Press stories from the social legislation front caught my eye this morning. First, is by Deanna Martin, is a bill that would hike marriage fees unless the couple takes classes first.

The second, unattributed, is a bill that would mandate that doctors tell their patients that human life begins at conception. There are something like nine bills with abortion in their description, so I’m not sure which one this article has in mind.

No time for me to hold forth on these at the moment. Talk amongst yourselves.

The House Judiciary Committee passed HJR 6 on a party line vote. This bill provides:

Only a marriage between one (1) man and one (1) woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana.

The question is who is going to be the lucky man and who is going to be the lucky woman. Maybe they’ll have a lottery or something. And wouldn’t it suck if they were already married to someone else?

The proposed amendment to the Indiana Constitution also provides:

A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.

So, if you’re just shacking up together and want to provide for the orderly transition of property and care of the children and whatnot, maybe Indiana is not the state for you.

I’ve said it before. I’ve come to believe this kind of legislation is on the wrong side of history, is actively bad, and will come to be regarded as an anachronism. And, this is probably why there is a desperate push to enshrine it into the Constitution. Because, sooner or later, the people of Indiana will probably want to treat gays like ordinary people and this proposed amendment to the Constitution is designed to make that harder. After all, we already have a law that does this, and the Indiana Court of Appeals has upheld it (h/t Advance Indiana). I doubt the law will last forever, but when the law is ready to go, I don’t think we’ll do ourselves any favors by having this language in our state Constitution.

Rep. Koch’s HB 1128 passed the House on a 78-18 vote. A casual glance at the roll call made me think it was mostly Democrats from northern Indiana who opposed this. It specifies that, for the purposes of the statute that provides financial incentives for clean coal and energy projects, hydrogen and “Coal bed methane derived from a naturally occurring biogenic process” count as “renewable energy resources.”

Trying to figure out what this coal bed methane business was about, I see that the Citizen Action Coalition has given a brief explanation:

This bill adds hydrogen and coal bed methane to the definition of renewable energy. CAC opposes this bill for several reasons. First, hydrogen has to be produced from something; therefore, it could be produced from nuclear and fossil fuels which would make it a non-renewable resource. The production of hydrogen from wind, solar, and water resources holds promise for the future, especially with respect to energy storage and transportation. However, since the bill does not specify the hydrogen be produced from a truly renewable resource, CAC opposed adding hydrogen to the renewables definition.

Second, there is nothing renewable about coal, including coal bed methane. While the language limits CBM to “coal bed methane derived from a naturally occurring biogenic process”, which would exclude CBM produced through hydrofracking, it is still coal, which means it is not renewable.

Third, it is highly problematic to continue to add resources to the Statutory definition of renewables. The new net metering rule, as well as the proposed feed-in-tariff refer to the Statutory definition. Which means, any future addition by the General Assembly will qualify (and we all know Sen. Hershman et all continue to believe that uranium, coal, and natural gas are renewable) and within both the net metering rule and the proposed fit are caps on how much total “renewable” energy can be added to the grid. By adding additional resources, especially when they’re not really renewable, the cap may be quickly used up, leaving no room for solar and wind projects to interconnect.

Rep. Crouch’s HB 1083 passed the House on a unanimous vote. It requires the criminal code evaluation commission to study whether there should be an increased penalty for a person who is at least 21 to solicit a child less than 14 years of age; and to study whether we should have a crime of “promotion of child trafficking.” Somewhat interestingly, this is a watered down version of the introduced bill which would have gone ahead and made these amendments to the criminal code.