Good morning. My name is Casey Daniels. That is Jim. And coming up, we're going to talk about the latest that is going on with Savannah Guthrie's mother,

Savannah Guthrie from the Today Show and the abduction of her mother, Nancy. And we'll get into that and how she said they are ready to talk.

But first, we have to talk about this. A lot of Hoosiers opening their utility bills this morning,

and they are double or even triple what they paid just a few weeks ago.

And Nipsco is saying the main reason is because it's been a very cold January, which has led to more furnace use.

The spike is part of a larger statewide increase in energy costs.

This is not just about the weather.

The utility companies across Indiana, they're raising rates, and they say this is to pay for

infrastructure upgrades and also transitions to new power sources. So does this have anything to do

with that SMR bill that was passed back in 2025?

Yeah, I mean, it's entirely possible that act was passed in the previous legislative session

last spring, signed into law by Governor Braun.

Now, that was just a pilot program, but there's still not a whole lot of details about this

out there as to, you know, where that's going to be done.

By the way, there are also still some further bills around this legislation that are part of the 2026 legislative session as well.

So I think it's probably too early for the SMR bill from last year to be directly affecting utility rates, especially to this degree.

But you're right. The idea that this is because it's winter. And so all of a sudden, electric costs are doubling and tripling in some

instances is just a ton of BS. Look, this winter hasn't been any worse than any other winter.

Previous winters, and we haven't seen the utility costs go up by double and triple on some

occasions.

This is just a continuance. Look, it seems like this, this car wreck that we've seen coming,

like for a year or two now. We've been talking about this. The utility rates have to go up.

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