Spencer County

Indiana Michigan Power wants to pursue a small modular reactor at the Rockport site, with a reactor design from GE and a timeline its own executives put in the mid-2030s. As of July 2026 it is early: a federal grant application, a planning document, and no application before nuclear regulators or the state utility commission. Every named local official on the record supports exploring it, mostly because of the jobs and the tax base. The state passed a law in 2025 that lets utilities charge customers for development costs before anything is built, and consumer groups oppose that mechanism.

Here is where I stand: I am not for it or against it yet, because the people most affected have barely been heard. No plant worker and no Rockport or Grandview neighbor has spoken publicly that I can find. County ordinance guarantees a public hearing before construction work begins. I will be at that hearing. Between now and then, you live with this plant, so tell me what you want its next fifty years to look like.

A developer wants to build a large gas power plant near Rockport, next to the AEP site. Commissioners rezoned the ground in June 2026, and the county council then rejected the proposed tax abatement after residents raised water use from the local aquifer, air quality, and the suspicion that the plant would end up serving data centers. The company promised neighbor well testing in the fall of 2026. Nothing about this is settled, and I want to hear from the neighbors and well owners closest to it.

On paper the Mid-States Corridor starts at the Natcher Bridge in Rockport. Spencer County's share is the four lane US 231 that was finished back in 2011, and the state's August 2023 decision says no corridor construction is planned in this county. The new construction under study runs from I-64 at Dale north past Huntingburg and Jasper, and every home and farm on the route maps released in October 2025 sits in Dubois County.

I still watch this project for Spencer County, because what gets built next door changes traffic, taxes, and farmland here too. INDOT scheduled the draft environmental study for fall 2026 and a final decision for summer 2027. You know where I stand: 81 percent of Dubois County said no in a December 2025 Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the Property Rights Alliance, and I have spent three years doing the homework this project never did.

Spencer County is CenterPoint electric territory, and the second phase of a roughly 20 percent increase took effect in March 2026. When the biggest new electricity users in the country come asking for power, they should cover more than their full cost so bills fall for everyone else. That is my line, and I will hold it.

Santa Claus is growing, and the numbers behind it are stubborn: a 44 unit apartment project needed a tax abatement to move, a small subdivision at Christmas Lake needed state infrastructure money, and the town's sewer rates had not changed since 2013 while costs, by the town's own account, tripled. Rural housing does not fix itself. It takes sewer and water capacity, and that is state level work I will own.

Holiday World is building a 22 million dollar water coaster announced for a 2027 opening, the county ambulance service won a state grant in 2025 for mobile health care and in 2026 began working to add ultrasound units to its rigs, and a farm co-op announced more than 20 million dollars for a fertilizer river terminal at Rockport in early 2025. Spencer County has real momentum to protect. The job is making sure the big decisions above do not squander it.