Indiana House passes a bill designed to cripple the state’s growing rooftop solar industry

The Indiana House voted Tuesday for a bill that opponents say will cripple the state’s solar industry.

If enacted, the bill would reduce the amount solar power users are compensated for routing unused electricity back on the grid.

Over the next five years, utilities would reduce net metering — a policy that ensures homeowners are compensated for electricity they add to the grid from solar generation — before bottoming out in 2022. Solar owners will then be compensated at much-reduced level, roughly around the wholesale price for electricity. The bill would also put a legislative cap on the amount of non-utility solar in the state.

Indiana bill would allow police to shut down protests 'by any means necessary'

A bill that would require public officials in Indiana to dispatch law enforcement swiftly to remove any protesters blocking traffic by “any means necessary” prompted uproar on Wednesday.

Opponents of the bill, introduced by a Republican state senator, rushed to the general assembly in Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon to attend a hearing for the legislation, arguing that it could give a green light to the police to shut down protests harshly “even to the point of costing lives”.

Indiana's Anti-Abortion Bill: A Blueprint for Attacks on Rights Nationwide

Indiana residents are calling on their governor to veto a sweeping anti-abortion bill passed earlier this month by the state legislature. Led by the group Indy Feminists, dozens of Indianans delivered a petition addressed to Gov. Mike Pence with over 2,700 signatures (now over 5,500) opposing House Enrolled Act 1337, which would make the Hoosier State just the second to ban abortion for genetic abnormalities and the latest entity to attempt further restrictions on fetal tissue research.

"Indiana has become one of the most dangerous states in which to be pregnant, now more than ever for those who would like to give birth," said Jennifer Kotting, communications director at the National Network of Abortion Funds and a South Bend, Indiana, resident. "In Indiana, you can be jailed for 20 years for having a miscarriage, and now [should Governor Pence sign the bill], if you experience difficulties in your pregnancy, you could also be risking prison, trauma or death."

Indiana Lawmaker Tries To Seriously Limit The State’s Ability To Make Environmental Rules

State lawmakers are often at odds with Washington when it comes to prescribed environmental laws. But Indiana may soon become an odd exception with a sweeping environmental rule that some critics have called one of the worst legislative bills the state has considered.

The commonly called “no more stringent than” bill would prohibit state policymakers from creating environmental rules that go beyond comparable federal standards. More than 13 local organizations oppose the measure, according to Indiana’s Hoosier Environmental Council, which said the bill would hinder the state’s ability to swiftly address local pollution problems or water emergencies like those happening in Flint, Michigan.

Senator Says Critics Of Indiana Should Get ‘Perspective,’ Be Thankful State Doesn’t Execute Gays

Appearing yesterday on CNN, Senator Tom Cotton (R) urged critics of Indiana’s “religious freedom” law to get “perspective,” suggesting the treatment of LGBT people in Indiana compared favorably to countries where gay people are executed.

“I think it’s important we have a sense of perspective,” Cotton said. “In Iran they hang you for the crime of being gay.”

The Indiana HIV Crisis Didn’t Have to Happen

What happens when you shut down health centers that provide HIV testing and ban programs that encourage drug users not to share needles during a spike in opioid use? In rural Indiana, the result was a surge in HIV infections. More than 80 people have tested positive for HIV in Scott County since mid-December, with most cases linked to intravenous use of Opana, a prescription painkiller.

The warning signs were there: Four years ago the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised of the rapid spread of Hepatitis C—which often accompanies HIV—among young drug users in Indiana, many of whom shared needles and other injection equipment. Indiana has the lowest per capita spending on public health of any state, while Scott County “has high rates of poverty and despair,” wrote Shane Avery, a local family physician. “Add to this a high rate of uninsured, low rates of completing a high school education, and insufficient access to public health services such as testing for sexually transmitted infections and mental services,” and you get conditions ripe for an addiction-fueled epidemic. The only clinic to offer HIV testing in the county, run by Planned Parenthood, closed in 2013, after state legislators pushed through a series of ideologically driven funding cuts.

Indiana Shut Down Its Rural Planned Parenthood Clinics And Got An HIV Outbreak

Scott County, Indiana, the center of an exploding HIV outbreak, has been without an HIV testing center since early 2013, when the sole provider -- a Planned Parenthood clinic -- was forced to close its doors. The clinic did not offer abortion services.

The Scott County clinic and four other Planned Parenthood facilities in the state, all of which provided HIV testing and information, have shuttered since 2011, in large part due to funding cuts to the state's public health infrastructure. Those cuts came amid a national and local political campaign to demonize the health care provider. Now, the state is scrambling to erect pop-up clinics to combat an unprecedented HIV epidemic caused by intravenous drug use.

Purvi Patel sentenced to 20 years in prison for her miscarriage

A 33-year-old Indiana woman who suffered a miscarriage has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for feticide -- causing the death of a fetus -- and child neglect.

Purvi Patel was arrested in 2013 after it was discovered that at 24 weeks pregnant, she prematurely gave birth at home and discarded the thought-to-be stillborn fetus in a dumpster. Patel then headed to the hospital to treat her heavy bleeding, where a doctor discovered an umbilical cord. The police were immediately called and questioned Patel on the spot.

"Religious Freedom" Laws Don't Legalize LGBT Discrimination. That's Already Legal in Most of America.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence—his entire state, really—has been hammered in the national press since last week's passage of a "religious freedom" bill. This New York Times headline says it all: "Indiana Law Denounced as Invitation to Discriminate Against Gays." ABC News' George Stephanopoulos took that angle in an interview with Pence on Sunday, asking repeatedly for a one-word answer as to whether the new law makes it legal for businesses to refuse service to gay couples.

Pence dodged, insisting that the media misunderstood the law's purpose. But had he been more honest, Pence would have said: George, Indiana doesn't need a new law to permit businesses from discriminating against gay customers. It's perfectly legal to do that right now.

GOP Presidential Hopefuls Rise To Defend Indiana Law That Many See As Anti-Gay

WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential hopefuls are lining up in defense of Indiana’s controversial “religious freedom” law, which critics warn will open the door to legal discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals by businesses in the state.

“I think Gov. [Mike] Pence has done the right thing,” former Florida governor and likely 2016 contender Jeb Bush said in a Monday interview. “I think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”

As a reason why such laws are necessary, Bush pointed to the case of a Washington state florist who was fined for refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding.

The Big Lie The Media Tells About Indiana’s New ‘Religious Freedom’ Law

On Friday, the Washington Post published an article titled “19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting.” The article snarks about organizations like the NCAA that have protested Indiana’s law, noting “the NCAA didn’t say it was concerned over how athletes and employees would be affected by Kentucky’s RFRA when games were played there last week.” The piece concludes “Indiana might be treated as if it’s the only state with a bill like this, but it’s not.” The piece has been shared over 75,000 times on Facebook.

Governor Becomes Frustrated When Asked If ‘Religious Liberty’ Law Will Be Used To Discriminate

Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) defended a “religious liberty” law he signed on Sunday, saying that tolerance was a “two-way street” and the law was about protecting religious people from government overreach.

Pence had said he was going to appear on the Sunday news show to “clarify the intent” of the law. Instead, he refused repeatedly to say if the law would greenlight discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation in the state.

Mike Pence Dodges Questions On Anti-Gay Discrimination In Indiana

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) refused to say on Sunday whether it should be illegal under state law to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Pence appeared on ABC's "This Week" to defend his decision to sign a controversialpiece of legislation intended to protect religious liberties that critics say will enable discrimination in the state. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow individuals and corporations to cite religious beliefs in private litigation. Pence's decision to sign the bill into law has sparked backlash against the state.

Indiana Governor Signs Anti-Gay 'Religious Freedom' Bill At Private Ceremony

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) quietly signed legislation Thursday that could legalize discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act would allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party. But many opponents of the bill, which included business leaders, argued that it could open the door to widespread discrimination. Business owners who don't want to serve same-sex couples, for example, could now have legal protections to discriminate.

U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Indiana's Right-To-Work Law

WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The validity of an Indiana state law that bars companies from requiring workers to join a union and pay union dues was affirmed on Tuesday by a U.S. appeals court in a win for "right to work" advocates.

The Indiana law does not violate the U.S. Constitution or federal labor statutes, a three-judge appellate panel said, agreeing with a lower court's decision to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the law.

Sullivan High School Students, Teacher Fighting For 'Traditional' Prom That Would Ban Gays

A group of Indiana-based parents, teens and even a teacher is fighting for a separate "traditional" prom that would ban gay students.

As NBC 2/My Wabash Valley is reporting, special education teacher Diana Medley is defending a group of Sullivan High School students who are arguing in favor of the alternate prom.

"Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don't agree with them, but I care about them," Medley told the news station. "It's the same thing with my special needs kids; I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason."

Charlie White, Indiana Election Chief, Found Guilty Of Voter Fraud

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Democrats say they will try next week to have their losing candidate installed as the state's elections chief after a jury found Secretary of State Charlie White guilty of six felony voter fraud-related charges, disqualifying him from office.

Jurors returned a verdict about 2 a.m. Saturday. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels then appointed White's chief deputy, Jerry Bonnet, as interim secretary of state.

Chairman Dan Parker tells The Associated Press that state Democrats will seek to have their 2010 candidate Vop Osili (OH' sill ee ) certified as secretary of state next week. A civil judge has ordered the state to declare Osili the winner, saying White was ineligible.

The appointment would ordinarily be up to the Republican governor. The fight could reach the state Supreme Court.

Original Article
Source: Huff 
Author: AP 

Indiana Creationism Teaching Bill Moves Forward In State Senate

Indiana legislators are moving forward on a bill that would allow creationism to be taught alongside other theories in the state's public school system.

The Senate Education Committee voted 8-2 Wednesday to present the bill to the full Senate, the Associated Press reports.

Creationism, a theory with origins in the Bible's Book of Genesis, suggests that divine power created man, animal, and all earthly matters. The idea is an opposing view to the science-based theory of evolution.

If the bill passes, Indiana school districts will have the option to include creationism as part of science courses, Indianapolis' WXIN reports.

The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Dennis Kruse, head of the Indiana State Senate's Education Committee.

Kruse previously proposed similar legislation in 2000 when he served as a state representative. That bill never made it past a committee vote, according to the Journal Gazette.

Indiana isn't the only state to examine the possibility of adding creationism to school curriculum.

Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Missouri have all looked at similar bills designed to encourage a critical look at evolution theory, the Wall Street Journal observes.

About 60 percent of high school biology teachers teach evolution in the classroom without taking a direct stance on the issue LiveScience reports.

The article states:

Based on respondents' write-in answers, the researchers surmised that many of these cautious teachers toed the line, weakly teaching evolution without explicitly endorsing or denying creationism in order to avoid controversy and questions from both students and parents.

Only 13 percent of the teachers surveyed in the nationwide study published in the journal Science said they support creationism and teach it "in a positive light."

Indiana Sen. Scott Schneider said he voted in favor of SB 89 because students should be taught various theories on the origin of life, according to the Northwest Indiana and Illinois Times.

Original Article
Source: Huff 
Author: - 

What 'Right to Work' Means for Indiana's Workers: A Pay Cut

For the past year, public employees around the country have been under attack. With collective bargaining cast as a fiscal issue, private sector workers are encouraged to vent their economic frustrations at lazy government clerks living high on the hog off others’ hard-earned tax dollars. “We can no longer live in a society,” Scott Walker, then governor-elect of Wisconsin, argued, “where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots.”

But it turns out that the same forces that bankrolled the attack on public employees have also been advancing an agenda to eliminate unions for private sector workers.

Twenty-two states—predominantly in the old Confederacy —already have “right to work” laws, mostly dating from the McCarthy era. “Right to work” (RTW) does not guarantee anyone a job. Rather, it makes it illegal for unions to require that each employee who benefits from the terms of a contract pay his or her share of the costs of administering it. By making it harder for workers’ organizations to sustain themselves financially, RTW aims to undermine unions’ bargaining strength and eventually render them extinct.

With the Republican sweep of state legislatures in 2010, a coalition of corporate lobbies, right-wing ideologues and Republican operatives seized the moment to fulfill their long-sought goal of extending RTW into traditionally union-friendly parts of the country.

In 2011, RTW was promoted in a dozen states, but adopted in none. As the new year gets underway, national attention has focused on Indiana as the best hope of anti-union lobbyists. Republicans have comfortable majorities in both houses of the Indiana legislature, and Governor Mitch Daniels is eager to sign a RTW bill. In March 2011, Democrats defeated RTW by fleeing the state—spending five weeks holed up in an Illinois hotel to prevent a legislative quorum. They returned only after Republicans promised that RTW would not be reintroduced in 2011.