Donald Trump and Mike Pence announced a deal in which Indiana would provide $7 million in performance-based tax breaks to carrier Thursday. | Getty Pence refused to help Carrier in 2014

Vice-president-elect Mike Pence turned down a request from Carrier two years ago to veto a bill that rolled back the state's energy efficiency program, a move the furnace maker warned would hurt its business there and lead to job cuts.

In a March 2014 joint letter, Carrier's parent company, United Technologies Corp., along with GE, Johnson Controls and Honeywell, asked the Indiana governor to oppose the bill, warning that ending the energy program would eliminate about 380 direct jobs and more than 1,200 indirect jobs, as well as $500 million in annual economic investments.


On Thursday, Pence and President-elect Donald Trump toured the Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis after announcing that the maker of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems would not lay off any workers under a deal in which Indiana would provide $7 million in performance-based tax breaks, according to a Trump transition team spokesperson.

And Trump said Carrier is just one of many companies that will benefit from his promise to cut federal regulation.

"I just want to let all of the other companies know that we're going to do great things for businesses, there's no reason for them to leave anymore," Trump said in a speech after touring the plant with Pence. "Because your taxes are going to be at the very, very low end and your unnecessary regulations are going to be gone."

Trump went on to add, "We need regulations for safety and environment and things, but most of the regulations are nonsense."

Even so, Carrier is still expected to ship 600 jobs to Mexico from the Indianapolis plant and another 700 jobs from a Huntington plant the company still plans to shutter.

UTC's 2014 request to Pence, reported Thursday by EnergyWire, aimed to protect the Energizing Indiana program that started in 2012 and had been managed by a third party using ratepayer funds, which upset large electricity customers who had to help foot the bill.

Energizing Indiana offered buyers reduced costs for lighting products, free residential walk-through efficiency audits and rebates to businesses for installing energy efficient equipment such as the HVAC parts and furnaces Carrier makes. In its first year, the program provided up to $5.49 in savings for each dollar spent by commercial and industrial customers, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission said in an August 2014 report. And in 2014, the program reaped 404 gigawatt hours of energy efficiency beyond the 591 gigawatt hours the utilities' programs provided, the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance said in an April 2015 presentation.

Since the program ended, the state's annual efficiency gains have been half of what they were, according to energy efficiency advocates.

"Jobs have been lost and we're not seeing the kind of investment and the kind of energy savings that we saw when we had Energizing Indiana and the efficiency targets in place," said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, one of the groups that fought to keep the program.

Some efficiency advocates concede Pence had little choice but to allow the bill to become law since the bill's supporters in the legislature had more than enough votes to override a veto. Also, the same month the bill became law, Pence asked the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to include in its report to the legislature on the program additional recommendations for "appropriate energy efficiency goals for Indiana."

"Managing the demand-side of our electricity industry through energy efficiency is an important part of our energy strategy," he said at the time.

Twenty-five other states have efficiency programs, said Martin Kushler, senior fellow at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and Indiana is the only one to have stopped its effort. While Carrier has remained silent on the extent to which efficiency standards affected their decision to shutter the plant, the state "repealed those energy efficiency targets and shortly thereafter Carrier said they're leaving town," Kushler said.

Carrier has also come under fire from U.S. lawmakers for taking federal aid but then planning to send jobs across the border.

Early this year, Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly urged Carrier to refund a $5.1 million tax credit to the Energy Department that the company received three years ago. The Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit program, the so-called 48C program, was pitched as a way to “help create thousands of jobs across the country and increase U.S. competitiveness in the global clean energy market.” Carrier was awarded the credit to “expand production at its Indianapolis facility to meet increasing demand for its eco-friendly condensing gas furnace product line."

John Mutz, a former Indiana lieutenant governor who sits on the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, a quasi-public entity that doesn't require legislative approval for its deals, told POLITICO on Wednesday that Carrier turned down a previous offer from IEDC before the election. He said he thinks the choice is driven by concerns from UTC that it could lose a portion of its roughly $6.7 billion in federal contracts.

“This deal is no different than other deals that we put together at the IEDC to retain jobs, but the fact is that the difference is that United Technologies depends on the federal government for lots of business,” Mutz said.

“The major factor that’s changed is we had an election,” Mutz said.

Darius Dixon and Matthew Nussbaum contributed to this report.