Indiana is no longer moving forward with its climate action plan. Now that both the federal and state government aren't leading climate efforts, the challenge of addressing climate change in Indiana mostly falls to local governments.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management released the state's initial climate plan last year with the help of a $3 million grant from the Biden administration. And though it was passed over for an additional grant, the agency said it would still go through with the plan.
That all came to a halt in April. Gov. Mike Braun ordered the Indiana Department of Environmental Management not to further develop climate plans under federal programs without the consent of the governor or the state legislature.
The executive order stated that these were one-size-fits-all policies that result in "worse economic and environmental outcomes for Hoosiers."
Shannon Anderson is the director of advocacy for Earth Charter Indiana. She said implementing the plan would have improved Hoosiers' quality of life, created jobs and put more clean energy on the grid to serve the growing demand.
Anderson said Indiana's lack of interest won't keep the climate from changing.
"That doesn't change the flood waters. That doesn't change the extreme weather. It doesn't change the extreme heat that we will experience," she said.
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Anderson said now that both the federal and state government aren't leading climate efforts, the challenge of addressing climate change in Indiana mostly falls to local governments.
Therese Dorau is with Indiana University's Environmental Resilience Institute as its assistant director for climate policy and implementation. She said the cities she talks to aren't slowing down their efforts to tackle greenhouse gas emissions — though a few are discouraged that some federal funding has been cut.
"I think the big gap that we see is that so many of the sources of greenhouse gas pollution are caused by big systems that cities and local communities don't control," Dorau said.
That includes major sources of climate pollution like coal plants and cars. Dorau said that's where cities could really use the help of federal and state leaders.
According to the Yale Program on Climate Communication, about half of Hoosiers believe the governor, the president and Congress should do more to address climate change.
Dorau said the climate plan and all the feedback the state got from the public still has value — local governments and businesses can use it to help their own climate efforts. Anderson hopes Indiana will find ways to integrate greenhouse gas reductions into other programs like transportation.
States and other entities that received the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant were required to submit several things to the Environmental Protection Agency — including an initial climate plan, a more comprehensive plan and a four-year status report. Indiana only sent in the initial climate action plan.
In a statement, IDEM said it spent about half of the grant money, the rest will be returned to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or on Signal at IPBenvironment.01. Follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.
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