Indiana manufacturers are absorbing grid cost risk they cannot source their way out of, a workforce pool that is shrinking rather than recovering, and OEM audit exposure that arrives faster than any IOSHA citation — and none of those pressures resolve on their own. Today's brief covers three stories that all point the same direction: the HB 1007 data center cost-shift debate from last month's Indiana Ag Policy Summit, a fatal incident at Ryobi Die Casting in Shelbyville, and a July jobs report that buried a manufacturing-specific warning under a headline number that does not reflect your hiring reality.

HB 1007 and the SMR Cost Risk Indiana Manufacturers Need to Track

Indiana's grid summit in Columbus on July 29th produced a moment that every Indiana ratepayer should know about. More than 200 people attended the 2026 Indiana Ag Policy Summit, where Indiana Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski and IURC Commissioner Bob Deig held a fireside chat. When the audience was asked to describe Indiana's energy future in one word, the top answers were "expensive," "uncertain," "complex," and "corrupt."

Deig acknowledged that aging gas lines, transmission lines, and substations are driving rate increases. Jaworowski framed roughly 60 proposed hyperscale data center projects — Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft — as an investment opportunity, pointing to House Enrolled Act 1007, which requires large-load customers to reimburse at least 80 percent of new generation and transmission costs built to serve them.

Here is what the Citizens Action Coalition flagged, and why it matters to you: utilities are not required to invoke that 80 percent provision. Which means Indiana manufacturers could absorb the remaining 20 percent of new infrastructure costs, plus SMR development expenses, through Indiana's Construction Work in Progress statute. CWIP allows utilities to bill ratepayers before a single reactor is built — even if the project is later cancelled. The NuScale-UAMPS cancellation in 2023, where costs tripled to $9.3 billion before the project collapsed, is the cautionary case SMR skeptics point to. Whether Indiana projects follow that trajectory is unknown. Under CWIP, ratepayers carry the exposure either way.

One more context point: Secretary Jaworowski also chairs Governor Braun's Nuclear Indiana Coalition, which is actively recruiting SMR investment to the state. That dual role was not disclosed in the summit's fireside-chat framing. Indiana ratepayers should factor that in when reading her generation-mix pitch.

The specific filing to watch is the AES Indiana IURC docket filed in April. How the Commission rules on whether the 80 percent reimbursement is mandatory or discretionary will set the precedent for every data center proceeding in this state. Get someone tracking that docket now.

Indiana Unemployment Headline vs. Factory Floor Reality

Indiana's headline unemployment sits at 3.3 percent for June — well below the national 4.2 percent. That number sounds like good news. It is not the full story.

The June gains that held that rate down were led by private educational and health services, construction, and trade and transportation. Manufacturing is not driving Indiana's headline.

Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on August 7th that total nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July. The Dow Jones consensus had called for a gain of 83,000. May and June were revised down a combined 103,000 jobs, pulling the 12-month average to just 34,000. Manufacturing added 5,000 nationally, but nondurable goods shed 13,000 — and that split cuts directly into Indiana's food and chemical processing base.

The structural problem is the wage gap. Indiana manufacturing wage growth is running at 2.6 percent versus 4.0 percent nationally. Hoosier manufacturing workers earn an average of $79,292 — 85 percent of the national manufacturing average, and well below Michigan at $82,422 and Illinois at $87,924. The Indiana Business Research Center projected state unemployment rising from 3.6 to 4.4 percent by year-end, meaning 3.3 percent may be as good as it gets for a while.

The August 28th BLS preliminary benchmark revision is the next number to watch. The 2024 revision cut 818,000 jobs — the largest downward correction since 2009. A repeat of that magnitude is unlikely, but even a revision half that size would materially alter the Indiana hiring picture. Check your skilled trades compensation against Michigan and Ohio benchmarks before that revision lands.

Ryobi Die Casting Fatality, Shelbyville — What the OEM Audit Risk Actually Looks Like

A worker at Ryobi Die Casting in Shelbyville was killed on the evening of August 7th. IOSHA, the Indiana State Fire Marshal, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, the Shelbyville Fire Department, and the Shelbyville Police Department all responded — required by Indiana law when a workplace death occurs.

As of August 9th, the investigation is active. Cause of death has not been released. The scene cannot be fully processed yet because plant equipment must cool — a 24-to-48-hour delay that is forensically significant. In comparable aluminum foundry fatalities, it is precisely this cool-down window where the question of lockout/tagout failure, machine-guarding violation, or process deviation becomes hardest to reconstruct. IOSHA investigators are working from a known high-probability checklist: the Non-Ferrous Founders' Society's sector-wide data identifies lockout/tagout and forklift safety as the top violation categories in aluminum die casting.

Ryobi Die Casting employs between 700 and 975 workers on a 1,000-acre Shelbyville campus — four facilities, one million square feet — producing aluminum transmission cases and structural castings for Ford, Honda, Hyundai, and General Motors. Honda recognized Ryobi as a 2022 Excellence in Delivery and Quality award recipient. GM honored them at their 32nd annual Supplier of the Year event.

The IOSHA financial penalty is not the primary risk here. That fine will likely be modest relative to the operational disruption. The more significant exposure is the supplier quality review that OEMs including Honda and GM have historically initiated after serious incidents. In past cases, those reviews have escalated to dual-sourcing decisions when production continuity was at risk. If you are anywhere in that supply chain, you should know within 24 hours whether a disruption at that facility affects your production schedule. Find out now, not when an audit notice arrives.

Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: What does HB 1007's 80 percent reimbursement provision actually mean for Indiana manufacturers?

A: HB 1007 requires large-load customers like data centers to reimburse at least 80 percent of new generation and transmission costs built to serve them. But the Citizens Action Coalition has flagged that utilities are not required to invoke that provision — meaning Indiana manufacturers could be left absorbing a share of those infrastructure costs through their rates, with no guaranteed protection from the statute.

Q: What is Indiana's CWIP statute and how does it expose ratepayers to SMR construction costs?

A: Indiana's Construction Work in Progress statute allows utilities to bill customers for generation projects before those projects are built and operational — including if the project is later cancelled. For SMR development specifically, that means Indiana ratepayers could begin paying for reactor construction costs years before any power is generated, with no refund mechanism if the project collapses the way NuScale-UAMPS did in 2023.

Q: What happens to an OEM supplier after a workplace fatality — what is the audit risk?

A: After a serious workplace incident, OEMs including Honda and GM have historically initiated supplier quality reviews that go beyond IOSHA's investigation. Those reviews assess production continuity risk, and in past cases they have escalated to dual-sourcing decisions. If Ryobi Die Casting is in your supply chain, confirm your exposure now — before an audit notice forces the conversation.

Q: Why is Indiana's 3.3 percent unemployment rate misleading for plant managers tracking hiring conditions?

A: The June gains that held Indiana's rate at 3.3 percent were driven by health services, construction, and trade — not manufacturing. Indiana manufacturing wages are growing at 2.6 percent versus 4.0 percent nationally, and the Indiana Business Research Center projects unemployment rising to 4.4 percent by year-end. The headline masks a tightening, wage-lagging factory labor market.

Three actions for this week. First, pull your annual electricity spend and model what a 15 to 20 percent rate increase does to your per-unit cost on your highest-consumption lines — then audit every demand-response and time-of-use program your utility currently offers. For background on how those rate structures work, the post on time-of-use demand rates for Indiana commercial and industrial facilities is a useful starting point. Second, check your skilled trades compensation against Michigan and Ohio benchmarks before the August 28th BLS revision resets the hiring narrative. Third, if Ryobi is anywhere in your supply chain, confirm your exposure today — and schedule your next lockout/tagout audit on high-temperature and high-pressure equipment before an OEM asks you to.