Braun appoints his 4th new member to Indiana utility commission since December

Gov. Mike Braun selected attorney Joby Jerrells as his next appointment to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

Jerrells, the chief counsel of the advisory division of the state attorney general’s office, will replace outgoing Commissioner David Veleta. The appointment means that since December Braun has picked four new members of the five-person board that regulates Indiana’s largest electric and natural gas providers.

“Hoosiers deserve reliable and affordable utilities, and have been overburdened by utility rate increases for too long,” Braun said in a statement Wednesday.

“Joby Jerrells brings decades of legal experience and a record of public service to the IURC, and he understands the commission’s responsibility to ensure Hoosiers have access to reliable energy at reasonable rates,” Braun said. “I am confident he will keep affordability for Hoosiers where it should be: priority one.”

The five-member board is an independent state agency established by law to act as an “impartial fact-finding body” in regulating Indiana’s investor-owned utilities.

The commission is increasingly the subject of public backlash to rising utility bills.

Braun demoted the commission’s chairman last month following a 3-1 vote authorizing a $71 million rate hike for AES.

Veleta, one of three commissioners who voted for the rate hike, submitted his resignation soon after.

The governor announced Jerrells as his pick for the vacancy late Wednesday afternoon, one day after a nominating committee submitted names of three finalists for his consideration.

Jerrells worked as an ethics counsel and senior attorney for the U.S. Army for more than a decade, as well as ethics counsel for Vice President Mike Pence in 2019. He became head of the attorney general’s advisory division last year.

Commissioners earn $152,000 a year.