The state body that oversees Indiana’s utility companies announced an investigative inquiry into rising gas and electric bills Wednesday after bipartisan pressure from state lawmakers and an uptick in complaints from residents.
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is a neutral state agency that ensures hundreds of utilities providing services to communities are safe, reliable and the rate charges to customers are just and reasonable. The commission also holds hearings and decides cases brought to it regarding utilities.
“Certainly, we want our ratepayers’ cost to be as little as possible, but we also want our utilities to be successful, so when we turn the switch, the lights come on,” said new commission chair Andy Zay during a press conference Wednesday. “That balance feels dramatically out of whack right now for many, many Hoosiers.”
The commission will hold a public hearing March 24 with presentations from five investor-owned utility companies, including AES Indiana, CenterPoint Energy Indiana, Duke Energy Indiana, Indiana Michigan Power Company, and Northern Indiana Public Service Company, or NIPSCO.
Indiana’s electricity costs rose last year, according to a Congressional report. State lawmakers are considering legislation that would place utility customers on levelized billing plans, while Gov. Mike Braun has signed other energy-related laws.
The commission’s announcement of the inquiry came after bipartisan pressure from lawmakers to look into NIPSCO’s rates.
Five Democratic state representatives from Northwest Indiana districts wrote a letter in September expressing “serious concern about the growing strain high utility bills are placing on our constituents and the lack of transparency surrounding these costs.”
Then, a dozen Republican lawmakers sent a letter on Jan. 27 to the commission after receiving a “significant rise” in complaints from their constituents about NIPSCO’s gas and electric bills.
According to the lawmakers' letter: NIPSCO customers saw an over 90% increase in electric bills in July 2025 compared with 2016. The company also has among the highest residential consumer rates of all electric utilities reported to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
They wrote that the statistics concerned them and requested the commission launch an investigation into NIPSCO’s rates to determine if they “have become unreasonable or unjustly discriminatory.”
This week, House Democrats and Republicans each sent letters to the commission.
“We’re going to ask questions on the rates, on the transparency of billing, and also on reflection to understand better what we have done right and what we have done wrong as a commission, to set a tone for what will come next,” Zay said Wednesday.
The fact-finding inquiry is the first step in a process to understand an energy affordability crisis across the state, Zay said, and it will inform the commission's next steps. He wants to hear directly from residents about their bills and plans to travel around the state for community meetings.
"The issue is before us today and now, and it’s time to weigh in and lean into this a little bit and try and at least be transparent, get some answers and have some open dialogue, and again, to help us define what that investigation might or might not look like," he said.
The public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, March 24 from 9:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the PNC Center. It will be livestreamed on the commission’s website.
Contact WFYI data journalist Zak Cassel at zcassel@wfyi.org