When Kerwin Olson of the Citizens Action Coalition says, “They write the laws, they control the process,” he’s not speaking in metaphor. He’s describing how Indiana’s energy policy has been engineered, line by line, bill by bill, to serve the interests of monopolies while leaving the rest of us to pay for their profits.
In the first episode of Gaslit: The Power of Story, I sat down with Olson and community advocate Ryan Stratman to understand how a state once known for its low cost of living became one of the hardest places in the Midwest to keep the lights on. What emerged was an autopsy of a public system quietly converted into a private revenue stream.
They traced the pattern: a decade of incremental laws passed at the Statehouse — trackers, surcharges, automatic rate adjustments — all designed to guarantee corporate returns regardless of market risk. Utility holding companies don’t just respond to Indiana’s regulatory system; they built it. Through lobbying, campaign donations, and relentless legislative pressure, they’ve created an environment described by Olson as a “perfect storm for investor-owned utilities.”
In practical terms, that means every Hoosier ratepayer is part of a business model we never consented to join. Bills climb. Wages stagnate. And when people fall behind, the punishment is immediate and personal: disconnection notices, fees, and eviction risks that ripple through entire communities. Stratman called it plainly: “People are choosing between heating and eating.”
That isn’t hyperbole. It’s data. Vanderburgh County’s ALICE rate — Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — is 44%. Nearly half of all working households live one unexpected bill away from crisis. Local assistance funds are depleted before winter ends. Township trustees — the “lenders of last resort” — are channeling millions in taxpayer money to cover unpaid utility bills. The result is a public subsidy for private monopoly profits.
Olson’s words echo the broader failure: “The public needs to continue to be heard. The system is corrupted by deep-pocketed influences.”
He’s right. And what he’s describing is not just an affordability issue; it’s a democratic one.
When essential utilities operate without competition, the regulatory system is supposed to function as the public’s defense. But when regulators are politically appointed and legislators are financially rewarded for deference, the line between public service and private interest disappears. The laws become both the shield and the weapon.
This is not abstract. It’s not about ideology or partisanship. It’s about whether ordinary Hoosiers can afford basic survival: power to refrigerate medicine, heat in the winter, air in the summer. The “affordability crisis” is an everyday fact in thousands of homes across southern Indiana.
Still, both Olson and Stratman offered a roadmap forward. They reminded listeners that change doesn’t start in corporate boardrooms; it starts with public voice. “One person is a complaint,” Stratman said, “but twenty people on a street, that’s a political problem.”
That’s where storytelling becomes strategy. When people testify at public hearings, when they share their stories online, when they meet with representative’s face to face, they shift what’s politically possible. The hearing rooms fill, the press takes notice, and the myth of apathy breaks. In that sense, the public voice is the last form of regulation that cannot be bought.
The first episode of Gaslit was about documentation, about showing exactly how affordability collapsed under the weight of legal decisions most people never heard debated. But it was also about reclaiming narrative power. The system may have been built this way, but systems are made of choices. And choices can be rewritten.
The next time you open your bill and wonder why it’s higher again, remember: it’s not an accident. It’s policy. And policy can change; if enough of us refuse to stay silent.