Governor Braun has formally directed Indiana's Office of Utility Consumer Counselor to file a complaint and petition the IURC to investigate NIPSCO — putting $2.3 billion in ratepayer-authorized infrastructure funds under state scrutiny, with 28,000 Northwest Indiana customers still dark nearly two weeks after the August 11 storms.

That investigation is running parallel to the most consequential IURC rate case deadline of 2026: September 8, when the reconstituted commission must rule on whether AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase gets rolled back — or locked in for another year. And while both of those regulatory fights develop, two Indiana manufacturers just committed serious capital to growth in DeKalb and Boone counties, for reasons that go well past the press release.

IURC Reconstituted: The AES Indiana September 8 Deadline Is Two Weeks Out

Governor Braun has agreed to pay former IURC Commissioner Andy Zay $625,000 to settle the lawsuit that had been giving AES Indiana cover to argue the commission couldn't act on its pending rehearing petition. With that legal cloud cleared, the commission's September 8 statutory deadline is now live.

Since December 2025, Braun has seated four new commissioners — the most recent being Joby Jerrells, appointed July 22, who replaced the commissioner who voted for the AES rate hike. With Joshua Bain also now seated, only one member of the original hike majority remains. The reconstituted commission can act.

What it decides before September 8 determines whether rate relief reaches AES Indiana customers in 2026 or gets pushed to the 2027 legislative session. That window is two weeks away. If you're served by AES Indiana and you haven't run the number on what twelve more months at the current rate costs your operation, that is the calculation to do this week.

NIPSCO Investigation: $2.3B Under Scrutiny, 28,000 Still Without Power

The OUCC's Ashley Bishop confirmed the scope of what the state is now examining: NIPSCO customers paid over $81 million for vegetation management from 2023 through 2025, and the utility has been authorized approximately $2.3 billion in customer funds to replace aging infrastructure since 2016. The IURC is now being asked how those dollars were spent.

As of Monday morning, roughly 10,000 customers remained without power — down from a peak of 374,500 — nearly two weeks after August 11 storms. A class-action lawsuit alleging failure to maintain a standard vegetation trimming cycle has already been filed, which creates an independent discovery track that could surface internal capital allocation records the regulatory proceeding alone might not compel.

NIPSCO has consistently ranked among Indiana's highest-cost investor-owned utilities in recent IURC filings. The reliability record now under investigation raises the question of what ratepayers actually received for that premium. Whether or not another 14-day event is likely, the investigation itself confirms that reliability risk in NIPSCO territory is now a documented regulatory concern.

If you're running a plant in Lake County and you haven't quantified what a multi-day outage costs your operation, that number is the input every backup-power and supply-clause decision runs through. The IURC investigation into Indiana utility tracker charges and the GenCo appeal putting the NIPSCO rate increase path back in front of Indiana manufacturers are both worth reading alongside today's developments.

Nucor Vulcraft $59M St. Joe Expansion: The Tariff Story Behind the Headline

We've been tracking the Nucor story out of DeKalb County since the August 13 announcement, and new details sharpen the case for why St. Joe was chosen.

Vulcraft is investing $59 million to construct a 127,000-square-foot steel grating facility on its existing 250-acre campus — adding industrial flooring, walkways, and stair treads to a plant that currently produces steel joists and decking. The announcement names twenty new jobs at $100,000 to $120,000 average wages. The real driver is tariff arithmetic.

Vulcraft's two existing grating plants are both in Canada, now subject to 25% retaliatory tariffs on U.S.-bound steel. Building domestic supply in St. Joe effectively re-shores product that has been serving American job sites from across the border — and positions Vulcraft directly ahead of the data center construction wave, which Nucor CEO Leon Topalian has publicly named as a primary nonresidential demand driver. Groundbreaking is targeted for Q4 2026.

If you're sourcing grating from Canadian or imported suppliers, the question for your procurement team is whether tariff-driven price increases from those suppliers land before Vulcraft's St. Joe capacity comes online in late 2027. That timing gap is where your near-term cost exposure sits.

D-A Lubricant Lebanon: $17M Expansion and What the Capital-to-Jobs Ratio Tells You

D-A Lubricant in Lebanon, Boone County, announced a $17 million expansion — $10 million for a new 115,000-square-foot building, $7 million for equipment — that adds automated processing, blending, and packaging systems to its existing 250,000-square-foot plant.

D-A currently employs 70 people in Boone County and expects to add 10 jobs by 2029. The ratio tells the story: $7 million in equipment against 10 net new positions is capacity and throughput expansion, not headcount growth. The timing aligns with D-A's PennGrade 1 Full Synthetic launch, which requires different blending capability than mineral-grade product — though D-A has not publicly linked the two.

If D-A is in your supply chain for lubricants or coolants, now is the time to review your supply agreement for lead time or pricing changes as the new automated lines come online.

Questions for Your Morning Huddle

Q: What is NIPSCO being investigated for?

A: The Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor has been directed to petition the IURC to examine how NIPSCO spent $81 million in ratepayer-funded vegetation management from 2023 through 2025, and how it deployed approximately $2.3 billion in ratepayer-authorized infrastructure investment since 2016 — following nearly two weeks of widespread outages in Northwest Indiana after August 11 storms.

Q: What does the NIPSCO investigation mean for manufacturers in Lake County?

A: The investigation formally establishes reliability risk in NIPSCO territory as a documented regulatory concern. For any plant running in Lake County, the practical step is to calculate what a 7-day and 14-day outage actually costs your operation — that number is what determines whether on-site generation or a reliability clause in your next power agreement makes financial sense.

Q: Will the AES Indiana rate case be decided before September 8, 2026?

A: The September 8 deadline is the statutory date by which the reconstituted IURC must rule on the OUCC's reconsideration petition against AES Indiana's $71 million rate increase. With the Zay settlement clearing the legal barrier and four new commissioners now seated, the commission can act — but the direction of that ruling is not yet known.

Q: Why is Nucor building a new steel grating facility in Indiana instead of using its Canadian plants?

A: Vulcraft's two existing grating plants are in Canada, and 25% retaliatory tariffs on U.S.-bound steel have made Canadian-sourced supply more expensive to land in American markets. The $59 million St. Joe facility re-shores that production domestically and positions Nucor ahead of projected data center construction demand, which the company has identified as a primary growth driver for nonresidential steel.

Today's bottom line: Indiana is attracting serious manufacturing capital — but the grid and regulatory environment those investments depend on are both under active reconstruction. Plant leaders who treat those as background noise are carrying risk they haven't priced.

For context on the demand charges and reliability costs that feed into backup-power decisions, see How Demand Charges Are Calculated: The 15-Minute Interval That Sets Your Commercial & Industrial Bill and C&I Microgrids for Industrial Facilities: Reliability, Cost Control, and What the Business Case Actually Requires.