A hulking steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, is the city’s economic heartbeat as well as a keystone origin story of JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to be Donald Trump’s vice-president.

Its future, however, may hinge upon $500 million in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a “scam” and is a Trump target for demolition.

In March, Joe Biden’s administration announced the US’s largest ever grant to produce greener steel, enabling the Cleveland-Cliffs facility in Middletown to build one of the largest hydrogen fuel furnaces in the world, cutting emissions by a million tons a year by ditching the coal that accelerates the climate crisis and befouls the air for nearby locals.

When campaigning for the Senate in 2022, Vance said Biden’s sweeping climate bill is “dumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer,” and more recently as vice-presidential candidate called the IRA a “green energy scam that’s actually shipped a lot more manufacturing jobs to China.”


Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

  • @djsoren19
    link
    fedilink
    52 months ago

    I don’t know how to break it to Ohioans, but we didn’t exactly have a high opinion of them in the first place. I don’t know if Vance is really sinking it any lower

    • @lolcatnip@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      52 months ago

      The only Ohioans I know are ones who escaped to Washington, and they’re so glad to be out. Pretty much the same as my view on escaping from Texas.