Deery follows LEAP pipeline bill with one aimed at IEDC

'These two are definitely related,' senator from West Lafayette says. Plus, the ‘granny flat’ proposal goes to the West Lafayette City Council.

• Support for today’s edition comes from Tipmont. Know a driven, collaborative teenager who loves solving problems and working outdoors? Make sure they visit the Tipmont booth at the Construction Career & Education (C2E) Expo — presented by the Builders Association of Greater Lafayette on Thursday, Jan. 23, at the Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds. Employees from Tipmont are eager to discuss careers that encourage communication, enable education and empower families, farms, businesses and communities. Learn more at www.bagl.info/c2e-expo.

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: CHECK OUT BASED IN LAFAYETTE AT TCPL, TOO: Free access to Based in Lafayette is now available and free to read at all Tippecanoe County Public Library branches. Based in Lafayette has been part of the reference collection at the West Lafayette Public Library since the summer. We finally have things lined up at the county library’s branches, too. Ask at a service desk or the reference desk at any Tippecanoe County or West Lafayette library branch to get logged in to read full-access editions of Based in Lafayette. Go to the library. It’s good for you.

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DEERY DRAFTS BILL AIMED AT IEDC OVERSIGHT

Last week, state Sen. Spencer Deery spoke here about a bill he plans to file in the 2025 General Assembly session looking for a two-year moratorium on large water transfers – read: Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s idea of a pipeline from western Tippecanoe County to the 9,000-acre LEAP district in Boone County – to give a state task force time to come up regulations to govern tapping and taking water resources. Deery predicted it wouldn’t be the only one of its kind in a session scheduled to start Wednesday, Jan. 8.

In a related move, Deery, a West Lafayette Republican, has lined up a bill that would change the structure and oversight of the IEDC, at a time when the quasi-public agency working to bring jobs and business to Indiana is under mounting pressure to be more transparent about its moves on the LEAP district real estate deals, its pursuit to move water and energy resources to feed industry and more.