To Fight Rising Bills, Gov. Braun Names 3 New Utility Commissioners

STATEWIDE — Gov. Mike Braun on Friday completed his near-remake of the powerful group overseeing the state’s biggest utility companies — naming three appointees to the five-member Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

They include Republican Sen. Andy Zay of Huntington, Democratic former Sen. Bob Deig of Evansville and Anthony Swinger, who works for the agency representing ratepayers.

The new commissioners, who begin work Jan. 12, will help guide state energy policy at a time of mounting public concern over rising electricity and natural gas bills.

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“Hoosiers deserve reliable and affordable utilities and have been burdened by excessive and unnecessary utility rate increases for too long,” Braun said in a news release.

“I am appointing these three Hoosier leaders to serve on the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to ensure that Indiana has exceptional utilities without saddling families and businesses with excessive prices,” he said.

The men, according to the news release, “are aligned with Governor Braun’s commitment to making energy affordable for families and businesses.”

Zay will chair the IURC, the news release said. He has served in the Indiana Senate since 2016, with several years on the chamber’s dedicated utilities committee.

His appointment will create a vacancy in the Senate because the Indiana Constitution bans government employees from concurrently holding more than one “lucrative,” or paid, office.

Once Zay moves to the IURC job, a caucus of precinct committeemen from his district will have 30 days to meet and select a successor, according to Indiana Code. That person will serve out the rest of his four-year term, which is set to end November 2028.

Zay will be joined by Deig, a Democrat who spent a term in the Senate from 2006 to 2010, with time on the chamber’s utilities committee. The IURC’s makeup must include both political parties.

Swinger, meanwhile, has spent more than 25 years with the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, the state agency that represents ratepayers in cases before the commission. He is the executive director of technical operations, but previously managed media, consumer, and governmental relations.

The IURC is charged with ensuring that utilities provide safe, reliable service at just and reasonable rates. By law, the commission serves as an impartial arbiter — “an advocate of neither the public nor the utilities” — but its decisions often draw scrutiny from consumer advocates and lawmakers alike.

The three men will fill roles left vacant by Commissioners Sarah Freeman and Wesley Bennett, who left in October, months before their terms were set to end. Chair Jim Huston’s term lapsed in April, but he pledged to stay on until a successor was chosen.

The jobs come with salaries of $152,000.