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After last year's bill that would establish statewide standards for renewables crashed and burned, lawmakers are trying again this year.

After last year's bill that would establish statewide standards for renewables crashed and burned, lawmakers are trying again this year.

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce is again calling for legislation that it says would remove some of the local hurdles such projects now face.

No clear path ahead for large-scale wind, solar projects FREE NEWSLETTERS Wildcat Wind Farm in Tipton County. (IBJ photo/Eric Learned) Much-debated legislation to boost wind and solar farms in Indiana was thwarted during this legislative session, but a key state lawmaker said Thursday he hopes to revive the issue next year to help meet the growing need for renewable energy. “We’ll bring back something,” vowed Rep. Ed Soliday, the bill’s author, as this year’s regular legislative session came to a close. “I don’t know whether it will look like this (bill) or what it will be.”

Efforts to send a message that Indiana is open for business to renewables came to an abrupt stop on Tuesday night. A bill that would have established some statewide standards for wind and solar projects — but was amended to grandfather in counties' more restrictive ordinances — died on the Senate floor.  Despite significant amendments that had House Bill 1381 doing a '180 degree turn' and handing more authority back to local governments, local control concerns still lingered, according to the bill's senate sponsor Sen. Mark Messmer, R-Jasper.  On the Senate floor Tuesday night, after...