'Energize Indiana' plan divided up

INDIANAPOLIS -- Democratic Gov. Frank O'Bannon's top legislative initiative will get its first formal consideration in the Indiana House this week, with no guarantees that it will survive unscathed.\nDemocrats who control the chamber divided the $1.25 billion Energize Indiana plan into 15 bills and sent them to seven committees for initial hearings and possible changes.\nSix bills went straight to the budget-writing House Ways and Means Committee, and others that survive are expected to end up there before getting any chance for consideration by the full House.\nThe plan would free up about $692 million by borrowing against a portion of the state's national tobacco settlement, tap another $195 million from a tobacco trust fund, and invest those and other dollars in business research, job training, college scholarships and schools.\nThe efforts would be targeted to creating high-skill, high-wage jobs in four industry sectors -- advanced manufacturing, life sciences, information technology and distribution.\nAlthough some spending would occur over 10 years, the plan envisions using $200 million over the next two years to supplement funding for schools.\nThe centerpiece of the proposal would sell off 40 percent of Indiana's future tobacco-settlement payments for a lesser, $692 million lump sum up front. Bondholders would assume the risk of future payments coming in, but would reap big dividends if they did.\nThe plan is scheduled for a hearing Wednesday before the House Public Health Committee, whose chairman, Democratic Rep. Charlie Brown of Gary, has had little positive to say about it. He says all tobacco-settlement money should be spent on health care efforts and programs.\nBrown said Monday that he would give the bill a fair hearing, allowing proponents and opponents a chance to testify.\nBut, he said, "They may be calling me Dr. Brown after the surgery I might do (on the bill)." Among other things, he suggested that selling off 40 percent of future payments was borrowing too much.\nSome of the plan's other components, including those that would extend research and development tax credits and help local governments create technology parks, are to get an initial look Wednesday by the House Technology Committee.\nThe plan also would use federal dollars for job-training programs, modernize the state's unemployment insurance system and extend unemployment benefits. Some of those provisions will be considered Wednesday by the House Labor Committee.\nThe proposal also would invest $135 million from a tobacco-settlement trust fund to provide scholarships to as many as 22,000 students who pursue studies in the four targeted areas of advanced manufacturing, life sciences, information technology and distribution.\nThe students would have to serve internships and remain in Indiana after graduation at least one year for each year they received a scholarship. If they did not, they would have to repay the scholarships.\nHouse Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, sent that plank directly to Ways and Means.\nSome in the O'Bannon administration have grumbled privately about the plan being broken into so many pieces, but Bauer has defended the move.\n"We think spreading it to 10 different authors and giving it full-body hearings will help some of those elements rise up, and it's a better way to try to get something through that is positive," he said.