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FAIR RATES ALLIANCE

Tired of NIPSCO Rate Hikes? Let’s Fight Back—Together.

Join the Fair Rates Alliance and get the same legal and regulatory firepower used by Fortune 500 companies to keep rates low—now built for Indiana's small & mid-sized businesses.

Start Here: Is the Fair Rates Alliance for You?

A message from Fair Rates Alliance CEO, Daniel Burke

The Problem: What's Happening?

This Isn’t Just Bad Policy—It’s a Direct Threat to Your Profit Margin.

Rate Hikes

65% average rate hikes for small businesses over just 24 months. And there's more in the pipeline.

Unfair Subsidy

Your business is forced to pay other people's bills. 17-33% subsidy burden added to your bills to pay theirs.

Outages & Damage

You fund grid improvements for big companies while you suffer outages and power quality damages.

If small and mid-sized businesses don't stand up and make their voices heard, this will only get worse!
There’s no cost to apply. We’ll review your bill and tell you exactly what joining FRA can do for you.

The Solution: What FRA Does for You

Complete legal and regulatory representation before the IURC. Our mission for you is:

1. Stop Bloated Utility Spending Before It Becomes Your Problem

- We call out padded budgets.

- We challenge feel-good projects that don’t serve you.

- We fight to ensure only essential upgrades that improve your service get the green light.

2. Eliminate Useless Surcharges That You’re Forced to Fund

- We fight quietly approved money-grabs.

- We fight for your right to opt out of unfair costs.

- We push for programs you can choose to join — and that actually help your bottom line.

3. Disarm Massive Rate Hikes Before They Erode Your Hard-Earned Profits

- We force the utility to open their books.

- We bring in expert witnesses and seasoned attorneys.

- We dismantle the math that’s been used to make your business subsidize others for years.

By resource pooling and taking collective action, what was once impossible for most businesses - influencing ratemaking decisions - is now affordable and easy through the FRA!
There's no cost to apply— just submit your bill and see what your participation would look like.

The Collective Advantage

Get enterprise-grade legal firepower at small business cost.

Up to a 99% Discount on Legal Costs
Access the benefits of hundreds of thousands in annual legal action — at up to a 99% discount.

 

We coordinate legal and regulatory strategies that would cost hundreds of thousands to pursue alone. And there's no cost to apply— just submit your bill and see what your participation would look like. With 100+ businesses aligned, we unlock the funding and force needed to fight back against unfair rate hikes, surcharges, and subsidies — delivering major wins for members while keeping individual costs low through usage-based pricing.

And the results? They speak for themselves.

Proven Results: Back-to-Back Wins Against NIPSCO. Our group was formed in 2023 and has delivered stellar results over just two years:

2,180% ROI

Return On Investment

Back-to-back NIPSCO rate case interventions have returned $21.80 in cost avoidance per dollar invested.

$167M Saved

Reduction of Increase

Our work has reduced NIPSCO's overall awarded increases by a staggering $167 million.

$5.72M Special Concessions

Direct Special Concessions 

Almost $6 million in direct, additional special concessions have been awarded to our members.

How It Works

Apply

Click "Apply Now", fill out our quick application form and upload your most recent bill.

Invite

We'll review your application. If you're a good fit for FRA Membership, we'll set up a call to discuss your application.

Enroll

Once enrolled, we handle the strategies, filings, and interventions, and keep you updated on key wins.

Meet the Team Leading the Fight

Fair Rates Alliance is led by a battle-ready team with deep expertise across every critical front: executive strategy, utility operations, and legal intervention. From rate design to regulatory pressure to real-time energy control, we’ve got the field covered — and we’re just getting started.

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Daniel Burke

CEO

Founder & CEO, Fair Rates Alliance
Co-Founder & CEO, TEG


Daniel leads the Fair Rates Alliance with a focus on regulatory access, legal structure, and strategic execution. He builds the systems that help businesses reduce utility risk, lower costs, and gain leverage in energy policy and rate design.

Full Bio

Founder & CEO, Fair Rates Alliance
Co-Founder & CEO, TEG

Builder of Countermeasures | Strategic Operator | Relentless on Execution

Daniel Burke builds countermeasures — for broken systems, rigged processes, and cost structures designed to squeeze businesses that don’t have a seat at the table.

As Founder and CEO of the Fair Rates Alliance (FRA), he leads one of the only legal and regulatory teams in the country focused exclusively on defending small and mid-sized businesses from runaway utility costs and systemic bias. The Alliance fights inside rate cases, capital plans, subsidy schemes, and infrastructure filings — and it wins.

Daniel is also Co-Founder and CEO of Tactical Energy Group (TEG), where he’s built a real-time energy intelligence platform that helps businesses control cost, power quality, and performance risk at the facility level — turning a passive utility bill into an active business system.

Together, FRA and TEG form a closed loop:

  • FRA blocks bad costs from entering the system

  • TEG eliminates the ones already inside

What sets Daniel apart isn’t theory — it’s structure. He doesn’t just identify risk — he builds systems that neutralize it, and then scale.

His work has already helped companies avoid millions in costs and regain control over one of the most unpredictable overhead expenses in business.

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Jonathan Burke

Energy Strategist

Co-Founder, Fair Rates Alliance
Founder, Tactical Energy Group


Jon brings over 40 years of experience in energy management, public-sector project delivery, and utility regulation. He leads the operational and expert witness strategies that support FRA’s interventions and ensure technical credibility in every case.

Full Bio

Co-Founder, Fair Rates Alliance
Founder, Tactical Energy Group

Energy Operations Veteran | Public-Sector Cost Killer | Regulatory Sharp-Shooter

Jonathan Burke has spent four decades turning energy waste into long-term savings, inflated utility proposals into courtroom wins, and limited public budgets into high-performance infrastructure.

As Founder of Tactical Energy Group (TEG) and Co-Founder of the Fair Rates Alliance (FRA), Jon is a rare force in the energy world — one of the few who can both execute at the facility level and fight at the regulatory level. He has personally led some of Indiana’s most celebrated energy overhauls, saving tens of millions of dollars for public entities and commercial users across the Midwest.

As South Bend’s first Energy Director, Jon:

  • Delivered $17 million in verified energy savings, with an additional $17 million on track

  • Oversaw the full CNG transition of the city’s transit and police fleets, including the nation’s first severe-duty CNG cruiser

  • Led the installation of a hydroelectric turbine on the St. Joseph River

  • Designed and executed the state’s most decorated energy performance contract, a $10.3M net-zero-cost upgrade for St. Joseph County

His field-tested playbook became the foundation for TEG — an organization known for deploying no- and low-capital energy savings strategies in sectors where capital is scarce but cost pressure is high.

Jon’s operational expertise naturally expanded into the regulatory arena. In 2012, he took part in his first utility rate case intervention, and he’s since become a trusted expert witness in major IURC cases, particularly those involving NIPSCO. His testimony and analysis have directly contributed to multi-million-dollar reductions in proposed rate hikes and cost shifts that would have hammered Indiana’s business community.

Today, Jon stands at the center of the Alliance’s operational and regulatory strategy — a trusted authority who understands how costs are created, how they’re justified, and how to dismantle them before they hit your bottom line.

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Keith L. Beall

Lead Counsel

Regulatory Counsel, Fair Rates Alliance

 

Keith is a utility attorney with more than three decades of experience across state commissions, wholesale markets, and rate case litigation. He serves as lead counsel for FRA, managing all legal filings, strategy, and regulatory proceedings before the IURC and other agencies.

Full Bio

Regulatory Counsel, Fair Rates Alliance


Utility Law Strategist | Former IURC Judge | Rate Case Closer

Keith Beall is the Fair Rates Alliance’s lead regulatory counsel — and the legal force behind our most important wins.

With over 30 years of experience spanning public, private, and independent utility sectors, Keith has built one of the most formidable utility law résumés in the Midwest. He’s served on both sides of the regulatory bench — as a former Administrative Law Judge at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) and as Chief Deputy at the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) — giving him an insider’s view into how rates are justified, how cost burdens are shifted, and how to shut it all down with legal precision.

Keith’s background also includes senior in-house counsel roles at MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), where he helped navigate some of the most complex wholesale power, transmission, and renewable energy challenges in the country. He’s represented utilities, municipalities, and business clients before regulatory bodies in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Missouri, Minnesota, and Kentucky, and has appeared in state and federal courts to litigate utility issues on behalf of public and private clients.

But what sets Keith apart — and what makes him so critical to FRA — is how he operates inside rate cases, TDSIC plans, DSM dockets, and stakeholder proceedings. He’s not just a lawyer; he’s a rate structure strategist, a cross-examiner of padded budgets, and a watchdog over utility math.

Working closely with the FRA leadership team, Keith has:

  • Led successful legal interventions that cut millions from proposed rate hikes

  • Dissected bloated utility filings to expose unjustified spending and unfair subsidies

  • Crafted high-leverage regulatory strategies that force accountability and shift power back to energy users

Keith is not a partner or internal staff. He’s retained legal counsel — and deliberately so. He remains independent to focus squarely on advocating for our members’ interests — not playing politics or toeing industry lines.

Keith holds a J.D. from the University of Dayton School of Law and a B.S. in Finance from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He is admitted to practice in Indiana state and federal courts and serves as a longtime member of the Indiana State Bar Association Utility & Environmental Law Sections.

 

In addition to our core leadership, the Fair Rates Alliance identifies and retains top-tier experts for each regulatory action we pursue. From rate design specialists to grid infrastructure analysts, we build focused teams tailored to the specific demands of each case — ensuring our members are represented by the most qualified voices at every stage.

Utility Accountability AmplifierTM

 Our unique 3-pronged approach is designed to get small and mid-sized businesses the same — or better — consideration in utility rate and rule-making as Fortune 500 companies.

  • 1. Voices

    We gather the largest possible group of business voices. Every 100 members can represent 150,000+ employees. That kind of economic impact speaks volumes — and regulators listen.

  • 2. Venues

    We maximize participation in each of the five venues where decisions are made. Each venue creates pressure, together they create unparalleled results.

  • 3. Experts

    At every venue, we bring top-tier legal, regulatory, and utility experts — all working in sync for priority treatment for our members.

Why Bother? It Can't Be That Bad...

At this very moment, NIPSCO is fighting for these crippling rate increases:
 
 
2025 NIPSCO Increases Carousel
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Demand Charge Increases, NIPSCO rate 523
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Kilowatt hour cost increases, NIPSCO rate 521
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Kilowatt hour cost increases, NIPSCO rate 526
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Demand charge increases, NIPSCO rate 524
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Demand charge increases, NIPSCO rate 526
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Kilowatt hour cost increases, NIPSCO rate 524
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025
Kilowatt hour cost increases, NIPSCO rate 523
These increases are a combination of approved and pending increases, based on best available data, over the period between September of 2023 and August of 2025

 

Why Is NIPSCO Power So Expensive?

NIPSCO is systematically driving up costs by choking off supply while overloading demand.
 
 
NIPSCO Fuel Mix

 

Are SMBs Really Being Targeted?

NIPSCO's subsidy scheme is clear -- industrial customers cut deals to keep their costs flat, the Office of the Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) aggressively defends residential rate payers, and the under-represented middle rate payers are forced to absorb all the discounts and pay for all the subsidies.
 
 
Copy - Data Governance Informational Infographic Template(3)
There’s no cost to apply. We’ll review your bill and tell you exactly what joining FRA can do for you.

Secure Your Future

"For decades, small and mid-sized businesses have paid more, received less, and been shut out of the decisions that shape their energy future. That era must end. As AI, electrification, and decarbonization drive unprecedented demand, monopoly utilities like NIPSCO are raising costs and shifting risk to the very businesses that power our communities. Without intervention, the coming decade will make the last few rate hikes look tame. The Fair Rates Alliance isn’t just a response—it’s a movement to reclaim control, restore balance, and protect our economic backbone. This is about more than today’s rates. It’s about who survives tomorrow.

With your support—and that of your peers—we can turn the tide. Together, we can hold utilities accountable and build a fairer, more resilient future for Northern Indiana’s business community."

Daniel Burke

Daniel Burke

Founder & CEO, Fair Rates Alliance

Stop the Abuse. Stop Overpaying. Secure Your Future.

Join the Fair Rates Alliance and take control of your energy costs.

There's no cost to apply— just submit your bill and see what your participation would look like.