STOP UTILITY GREED IN INDIANA
Big utilities like Duke Energy, CenterPoint, I&M, AES and NIPSCO keep raising your rates to pad their profits and reward their shareholders. Efforts to rein in what they can charge customers have been repeatedly undermined, as these companies find ways to skirt the rules and exploit loopholes.
Without concrete transparency and accountability, they will continue using YOUR utility payments to build influence to keep the rates high while leaving the public in the dark.
Ask Indiana lawmakers to support Senate Bill 152 that would stop unfair utility practices that prioritize corporate profits and shareholders while leaving hardworking Hoosiers to foot the bill.
Protect Indiana Utility Ratepayers!
Indiana utility customers’ hard-earned money should benefit them – not just executives and shareholders.
Indiana Senators Hunley, Ford, and Spencer have introduced new legislation, Senate Bill 152, that will provide more protections for ratepayers and additional transparency and accountability for electric utilities.
Our public utilities must be held accountable to put us, the customers, first. Voice your support for Senate Bill 152.
See who contacted their legislators and what they have to say about Indiana utilities.
Enough is Enough: New Legislation Can Help
Several legislative bills aimed at leveling the playing field for utility consumers were introduced in the Indiana Legislature in 2025; however, they did not make it across the finish line.
Senate Bill 152 has been introduced in the new legislative session by Indiana Senators Andrea Hunley, J.D. Ford, and Mark Spencer. This legislation introduces several measures to increase oversight, transparency, and accountability for Indiana’s electric and gas utilities:
- Political and lobbying restrictions prohibiting energy utilities from recovering costs related to lobbying, legislative action, political activities, charitable giving, litigation, or investor relations through ratepayer charges.
- Annual transparency reports beginning in 2026 detailing costs associated with restricted activities, which the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) must post publicly on its website.
- Enhanced billing details requiring that customer bills must include a clear breakdown of all charges and fees, with specific costs delineated as individual line items.
The bill would also require IURC approval for utility stock sales, reorganizations, or acquisitions and mandates and would allow utilities to establish assistance programs specifically for qualified residential customers.
Indiana ratepayers deserve legislation that will prevent utilities from charging customers for lobbying, political activities, charitable giving and other activities that rig the system in their favor.
The time is now to tell legislators that Hoosiers need measures that stop utility greed by enacting transparency and accountability and that put customers first.
Let’s look at why enacting new utility transparency and accountability matters – and why your voice can make a difference!
Pay-to-Play Politics at Your Expense3
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- Indiana utilities have donated more than $7 MILLION to politicians over the last 10 years.
- These big donations and powerful lobbyists have let utilities dictate the rules surrounding how they raise rates and how much they can charge ratepayers.
Money Talks
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- Monopoly utilities are guaranteed a rate of return for every dollar they spend so the more utilities spend, the more they earn.
- Excessive rate hikes have been caused by expenses for transmission and distribution upgrades, power plant construction and improvements, new programs and services, and rising fuel costs.
Indiana utilities are out to get your money any way they can!
Tell your lawmakers to stop the greed!
Lawmakers need to take action to curb the abuses of power from Indiana’s utility monopolies and prevent Indiana utilities from living the high life off of their customers. It’s time to stop utilities from charging customers for:
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- costs for Gulfstream jets and a private helicopter4 for executive travel
- utility association membership dues that primarily benefit shareholders
- the costs of filing and litigating their rate case
- unidentified economic development projects
- corporate restructuring
INDIANA UTILITIES ARE OUT TO GET YOUR MONEY ANY WAY THEY CAN!
AES Indiana Files to Hike Electricity Rates
In June 2025, AES Indiana filed for a massive rate hike before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that would increase the average electricity bill by $30 a month. This new increase comes on the heels of a recent April 2024 rate hike approval of $9 a month on average.
The new request amounts to an extra $192.9 million flowing to the utility monopoly every year. Combined with previously approved rate increases, the collective increase hitting ratepayers will be an additional $468 million by 2027. Enough is enough.
DUKE ENERGY REQUESTS MASSIVE RATE HIKE
In April 2024, Duke Energy filed for a massive rate hike with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. In January, the IURC approved an annual revenue increase of $395 million. The first rate hike went into effect in March with the second coming in 2026.
Indiana utility customers must pay a guaranteed profit rate. Keep in mind that Duke Energy Indiana raked in $497 million in profit in 2023, and more than $2.7 billion in total profit from 2017 to 2023.
In August, the Indiana Court of Appeals also found that Indiana utility regulators “impermissibly applied” Indiana law retroactively when they let Duke Energy raise customer rates to recover coal ash compliance costs between 2015 and 2018. They almost got away with it.
Duke still wants MORE and there is an expectation of a future rate hike on the horizon.
NIPSCO LOOKING TO CUSTOMERS FOR BIG PROFITS
If NIPSCO’s rate increase petition is approved, typical residential customers will see their bill increase 31% from $136.53 as of September 2024 to $178.79 by March 2026, and an extra $35.50 in annual sales taxes by March 2026.
These increases do nothing for customers. They reward shareholders and pad the utility’s corporate bottom line.
CenterPoint Indiana Sides with Industrial Customers
If the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission approved CenterPoint Energy’s proposed settlement in its electric rate case, average CenterPoint residential customers would see their bill increase 22.74% from $154.02 to $189.05.
Residential customers with electric heat who remain on CenterPoint’s transitional rate would fare worse, with a 29.33% increase, shooting up monthly bills from $178.48 to $230.81.
All while CEO salaries increase and the corporate stock market ticker goes up!