House sends more Republican priority bills to Senate

House Republicans on Tuesday advanced two of their priority bills to their Senate colleagues — one expanding the use of state higher education dollars on job training and another to streamline the administrative law process for government agencies. 

The chamber also passed legislation prohibiting municipalities from suing manufacturers in the gun industry and further defining wetlands. 

Action of priorities

House Bill 1001 will allow high school graduates to use money from the 21st Century Scholars program and Frank O’Bannon grants for training such as apprenticeships, rather than traditional college degrees. 

A Democratic amendment on Monday delayed that adoption until 2025, but another portion of the legislation would allow students to use Career Savings Accounts to cover costs associated with obtaining driver licenses.

Indianapolis Rep. Ed DeLaney, the author of that amendment and new co-author, said he supported funding the technical education for students, many of whom would work in industries with workforce shortages, but asked the General Assembly to consider giving more support to college students in the future.

“The way I see it, there are two paths … and a student pursuing a technical education might experience no costs for training and might even get paid for the work they do,” DeLaney said. “On the college front, it’s a very different story.”

The House passed the bill 80-17 over some objections from DeLaney’s Democratic caucus.

The second priority bill to move on Tuesday would make the Office of Administrative Law the “ultimate authority” on disputes between agencies and members of the public. Author Rep. Greg Steuerwald previously oversaw an effort to eliminate in-agency administrative law judges in favor of one office for all state departments. 

“And I have not heard one word in five years about any loss of expertise,” Steuerwald, R-Avon, said. 

But Bloomington Democrat Rep. Matt Pierce worried the bill would weaken certain government rulings, such as those from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. He used the hypothetical case of a chemical being regulated as “toxic” against a producers’ wishes but landing an appeal before a sympathetic judge. 

“Under current law, a judge can’t start over and substitute personal opinion. You have to see if the agency was reasonable and used their expertise reasonably,” Pierce said. 

But now, he said, judges were “going to be empowered to basically put their opinion into it and put their policy into it.”

The bill passed 85-10.

Other business

The House also moved a bill from Rep. Chris Jeter, R-Fishers, that would effectively end a 1999 lawsuit from the City of Gary against nine gun and ammunition manufacturers. He painted the measure as an invasion of gun owner privacy, as manufacturers turned over gun owner names and addresses. Instead, his bill would only allow individuals and the state to pursue such litigation. 

Gary Rep. Ragen Hatcher disagreed with Jeter’s assessment, saying the city took action following a flood of firearms into the city that spurred violence. Hatcher, a Democrat attorney, noted that Gary had recently won a motion to require the companies to release “potentially damaging documents.”

“The goal of Gary v. Smith & Wesson Corp (1999) is to hold the gun industry accountable. It’s about increasing transparency and promoting safer marketing practices,” Hatcher said in a release. “Negligent firearm manufacturers play a significant role in the increase in gun violence we’ve seen across Indiana. The laws regulating the gun industry haven’t been changed since the 1960s. A part of gun violence reduction is promoting reform, accountability, and safe sales. Instead, this legislation prohibits legal justice.”

DeLaney noted that litigation similar to the Gary case had revealed reams of information related to wrongdoing in the opioid and tobacco industry in two separate settlements that took years. Jeter rebuffed that, saying that isn’t how legal action should advance. 

“This case is not about crime in Gary. It’s an attempt to do judicially what gun control proponents have been unable to do legislatively,” Jeter concluded.

The bill passed 68-27, with all no votes coming from the House Democratic caucus. 

Lastly, the House also passed a wetlands bill that author Rep. Alan Morrison, R-Terre Haute, said had the approval of both the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Indiana Builders Association — parties traditionally on opposite sides of wetlands legislation. He said the legislation refined definitions for classifying wetlands.

“Balancing development and progress with the environment is not an easy task but one we have and I think we in Indiana have done a good job,” Morrison said. “This bill does not provide for the elimination of more wetlands.”

But Indra Frank, director of Environmental Health and Water Policy for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said Indiana has already seen significant losses in wetlands and this will make the problem worse.

“Indiana cannot afford to lose more wetlands,” she said. “Wetlands provide essential functions like soaking up stormwater, reducing flooding, and replenishing our aquifers. Unfortunately, HB 1383 would further erode wetland protection, so we hope to see this bill improved or stopped in the Senate.”

The bill passed on a narrower vote, 64-30.