Eco Report – May19, 2023

News at IU reports that to build on its legacy of helping its students and alumni contribute to efforts to find solutions to pressing global challenges, the Indiana University Kelley School of Business is establishing the Institute for Environmental and Social Sustainability.

Nearly 45 professors representing every department at the Kelley School in Bloomington and Indianapolis are actively engaged in research involving environmental and social sustainability. The institute will enable the school to better support and broaden these activities while also offering new courses and educational opportunities for students.

“Many companies are increasingly addressing environmental and sustainability issues to better understand the impact of their activity on people and society,” said Ash Soni, dean of the Kelley School. Our faculty has been engaged in these issues for a while, and this institute will help us to be better positioned to make a difference.

A key to success will be whether this institute can move the legislature toward a more progressive posture.

—Norm Holy

To Hoosiers not familiar with the technical language in House Bill 1623, it may be difficult to decode how it applies to everyday life. But Sam Carpenter understood what’s at stake – and was quick to call it a “bad bill.”

Carpenter, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, worried that the legislation could affect people’s health and the environment. He said it creates more paperwork for state regulators dealing with the ash left behind when coal is burned to make electricity, and collected in ponds, “most of them unlined.”

“Indiana has one of the highest – if not the highest – number of coal ash ponds in the state, compared to other states in the nation,” he said, and they are leaching toxic metals – mercury, arsenic, lead – into our waterways.

However, the bill’s supporters have said it streamlines rulemaking and standardizes government procedures. Carpenter said his group wanted more common-sense regulation, and blamed special-interest groups and a tendency from some who push back against any new law.

Carpenter predicted that the legislation will limit regulators’ ability to effectively do their jobs.

We’re really relying on federal regulations for Indiana problems, he said. Holcomb signed House Bill 1623 into law Thursday.

—Norm Holy

Indiana plans to give $10 million to the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust Fund. The HEC said it’s not the $25 million the governor proposed, but it’s still the most the state has ever appropriated to the trust without the help of federal dollars. Lawmakers also earmarked $30 million for trails, though the governor had proposed $50 million.

HEC Executive Director Sam Carpenter said a lot of people visited Indiana’s state parks and trails during the pandemic Stay-At-Home orders — and that demand remains strong.

“These are investments that help retain and attract talent in Indiana. And I know that’s a big focus for the legislators in the General Assembly as well as for our corporate businesses,” he said.

An extra $5 million will go to the Clean Water Indiana program which help farmers and landowners reduce erosion into waterways. A report last year said Indiana had the most polluted rivers and streams of any state — mostly due to runoff from large animal farms.

The state also increased fees for motorboats, which will result in an extra $1.2 million for things like improving habitats for aquatic life. At a time when more Hoosiers are getting outside, the legislature has made even more budget cuts to Indiana’s underfunded and understaffed environmental agencies.

The funding for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years will be about 3 percent lower than the current budget. Even though the Indiana Department of Environmental Management receives more money now from the state’s general fund, it will be operating with about 11 percent fewer dollars overall.

The Hoosier Environmental Council said budgets for state environmental agencies haven’t recovered since the 2008 recession — making it difficult for them to retain employees and ultimately do their jobs.

—Norm Holy

The regulations governing power plants come on the heels of other Biden administration plans to cut tailpipe emissions by speeding up the country’s transition to electric vehicles, to curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells and to phase down the use of a planet-warming chemical in refrigerants. Together with the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which is pouring more than $370 billion into clean energy programs, the actions would catapult the United States to the forefront of the fight to constrain global warming.

“We are in the decisive decade for climate action, and the president’s been clear about his goals in this space, and we will meet them,” Mr. Biden’s senior climate adviser, Ali Zaidi, said in a telephone call with reporters on Wednesday.

The government is not mandating the use of equipment to capture carbon emissions before they leave the smokestack, a nascent and expensive technology. Rather, it is setting caps on pollution rates, which power plant operators would have to meet. They could do that by using a different technology or, in the case of gas plants, switching to a fuel source like green hydrogen, which does not emit carbon.

The nation’s 3,400 coal- and gas-fired power plants currently generate about 25 percent of greenhouse gases produced by the United States, pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

It will be interesting to see how Indiana’s lawmakers respond to this challenge. The lawmakers have been busy promoting coal, declaring that natural gas is not a greenhouse gas, and placing barriers to wind and solar.

—Norm Holy

Eko Solutions offers five container-home models, which are made in Alabama. They range from 320 square feet with one bedroom and one bathroom to 1,280 square feet for a two-story model with three bedrooms and one bathroom.

Fishers-based Eko Solutions is one company looking to expand its footprint in the container-housing industry, which is growing in Indiana. Homebuilders include Custom Container Builders in Indianapolis and Rock Creek Container in Markle.

Globally, the container-homes market is expected to grow from $59 billion in 2022 to $87 billion by 2029, according to Fortune Business Insights.

Eko Solutions works to turn shipping containers into permanent housing for people looking for an affordable home and into temporary housing for natural disaster survivors. Since its founding in 2020, Eko Solutions has sold 59 container homes.

The company offers five models that range from 320 square feet with one bedroom and one bathroom for $60,000 to 1,280 square feet for a two-story model with three bedrooms and one bathroom that costs $165,000.

“Across the United States, we see the lack of housing in general as well as attainable housing for individuals to be able to get into,” Eko Solutions President Peter Rodriguez said.

Manufacturers like Eko Solutions are permitted to use two types of shipping containers: one-use containers that have crossed the ocean a single time, and wind and watertight containers that have taken seven to 10 trips across the sea.

While Alabama allows containers that have been used multiple times, Indiana allows only one-use containers to be repurposed.

Over the course of the next 100 years, climate change will create millions, even hundreds of millions, of refugees. Many will leave coastal cities, seeking higher ground.

—Norm Holy

A Birdwatching for Beginners class is being offered at Leonard Springs Nature Park on Saturday, May 20th, from 7:30 to 9:30 am.  The hike will include several stops to look for birds.  Binoculars and field guides will be available.  Sign up at bloomington.IN.gov/parks.

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