Ohio environmental advocates are questioning the intent of a pending state law that would add nuclear power to the state’s legal definition of “green” energy.

House Bill 308’s sponsors say the legislation is meant to signal that Ohio is open for business when it comes to nuclear power research and development, but critics warn the language could have broader implications in the future.

“Legislators don’t just put something into the code unless it has meaning and purpose and value,” said Megan Hunter, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of several environmental groups challenging a similar 2022 state law that classified natural gas as a “green” energy source. “Why would you do this if it has no impact or meaning or effect?”

Critics fear the language could be used to greenwash power plants or divert public funding from renewable energy projects, though the bill’s sponsors deny that motive.

“It doesn’t promise any incentives or anything beyond simply placing nuclear under the category of green energy in the Ohio Revised Code,” said state Rep. Sean Brennan, a Democrat from Parma who co-sponsored the nuclear legislation with Republican state Rep. Dick Stein of Norwalk. 

The General Assembly passed the nuclear legislation on Dec. 11. As of Thursday it was awaiting Gov. Mike DeWine’s signature.

Brennan said the question of why the language should be in a law instead of just a resolution didn’t come up in discussions with Stein, who initially asked him to cosponsor the bill.

Stein said the legislation is “about sending a signal to the market that Ohio wants to be a partner and won’t be an impediment,” in contrast to other states that don’t want nuclear energy. He said he hopes it will help attract jobs and federal funding, building on last year’s creation of a state nuclear development authority.

Stein would not speculate on follow-up steps lawmakers might take, saying his term in the House of Representatives ends this month.

What the law could do

Ohio does not currently have state incentives or policy preferences for “green” energy. The state’s renewable energy standard essentially ended in 2019 as a result of House Bill 6, the coal and nuclear bailout law at the heart of the state’s ongoing corruption scandal. Opponents testifying against the current legislation, though, said they worry the definition will be used to water down future clean energy policies. 

“HB 308 will enable the manipulation of public funds into private, corporate hands,” said Pat Marida, a coordinator for the Ohio Nuclear-Free Network, in her December 13 testimony. Also, she said, “there is nothing ‘green’ about nuclear power,” referring to radioactive waste, which continues to be stored at power plant sites.

Future state programs might offer funding or other advantages for projects that meet the state’s definition of “green” energy, for example. And even if the definition doesn’t open doors to new government funding, it could provide cover to private companies that want to count gas and nuclear energy toward their climate or clean energy targets, another advocate warned.

“Insidiously, it does potentially become important,” said Nathan Alley, conservation manager for the Sierra Club of Ohio. Many companies have adopted clean energy goals, he noted. “This might telegraph to them that they could invest in nuclear energy and achieve the same climate and/or energy goals as if they invest in solar or wind.”

Ohio lawmakers aren’t the only ones who want to define natural gas and nuclear power as “green energy.” Model legislation finalized by the American Legislative Exchange Council this fall does the same thing. ALEC is a Koch-linked group that has long opposed renewable energy and actions to address climate change.

ALEC’s model bill would have its definition “apply to all programs in the state that fund any ‘green energy’ or ‘clean energy’ initiatives.” Another model ALEC bill would define nuclear energy as “clean energy” and put it on a par with renewable energy.

A coalition of environmental groups is currently challenging House Bill 507, Ohio’s 2022 law that labeled natural gas as “green energy,” arguing in court that the way in which it was passed violated the state constitution. The groups say last-minute amendments violated provisions that require bills to deal with a single subject – the initial two-page bill dealt with chickens – and call for at least three hearings in each house of the General Assembly where lawmakers can hear testimony from supporters and opponents.

That lawsuit has been briefed and is currently awaiting a decision from Judge Kimberly Cocroft at the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas. HB 308 should not affect that case, said Hunter and Alley.

As with HB 507, though, lawmakers added last-minute amendments to HB 308. One of those would extend lease terms for drilling under state park and wildlife areas from three years to five years. That was unacceptable to Brennan, who voted against the Senate amendments when it came back to the Ohio House.

Still, he supports what he views as the main purpose of the legislation: attracting more nuclear power to Ohio. In his view, solar and wind won’t be enough to meet growing energy demands while shifting away from fossil fuels in order to address climate change. “I believe nuclear is going to be hugely important for our energy independence, and hopefully Ohio will become an exporter of electricity in the future.”

Hunter wasn’t surprised that lawmakers made last-minute amendments to the bill. For her, it shows the importance of the ongoing litigation over HB 507.

“Those constitutional protections are there for a reason,” she said. “And seeing the General Assembly have blatant disregard for them again and again harms Ohioans. It deprives them of these constitutional rights.”

A symbolic gesture or Trojan horse? Ohio groups question purpose of ‘green’ nuclear bill  is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The following commentary was written by Jesse Velazquez, Climate Justice Manager at the Ohio Environmental Council. See our commentary guidelines for more information.

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In his victory speech, President-elect Donald Trump promised to further boost “liquid gold,” also known as oil and gas. Today, oil and gas production is at record highs and continues to grow. As the industry expands, so do concerns about methane pollution.

The primary component of natural gas is methane, a potent greenhouse gas that warms the planet more than 80 times as much as carbon dioxide over 20 years. It’s also a significant contributor to smog and public health issues like asthma and respiratory disease, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities. Yet, efforts to reduce methane emissions present a rare win-win opportunity: they not only curb pollution but also create jobs and foster innovation.

Take Pennsylvania, one of the largest natural gas producers, for example. By adopting innovative methane mitigation strategies, the state is reducing harmful emissions from oil and gas operations while creating jobs and fostering a cleaner, more sustainable energy future. This balanced approach showcases how economic growth and environmental responsibility can go hand in hand, offering a model that Ohio should replicate.

According to the 2024 State of the Methane Mitigation Industry Report, developing and implementing technologies to cut methane pollution would create jobs ranging from manufacturing leak-detection equipment to technicians skilled in repairing faulty infrastructure. Pennsylvania saw a 22.2% growth in methane mitigation companies over the last three years. Since 2014, the industry has expanded by 65% with the state now hosting 33 methane mitigation companies. In fact, Pennsylvania is now home to 8.5% of the total employee locations in this sector nationwide.

These good-paying, family-sustaining jobs bolster local economies while addressing critical environmental challenges. And the opportunity for Ohio is immense.

The benefits extend far beyond jobs. Reducing methane emissions means less wasted energy. Nationally, oil and gas companies emit enough methane waste annually that could be utilized to meet the energy needs of millions of homes. Capturing the lost gases would translate directly into increased efficiency and cost savings. For a state like Ohio, with its large-scale oil and gas operations, this represents a tangible economic benefit.

This isn’t just about economic gains. Methane mitigation is also a crucial climate strategy. The U.S. EPA’s Section 111 Methane Rule, finalized a year ago, set robust federal standards to limit methane emissions from oil and gas operations. While essential, this rule relies heavily on state-level implementation to achieve its full potential. States like Ohio have a chance to lead by adopting and building on these standards, aligning economic growth with environmental stewardship.

And we know clean air and economic growth are priorities that transcend party lines, as evidenced by the broad coalition of businesses, environmental advocates, and community leaders rallying behind these initiatives.

Ohio is at a crossroads. We can continue business as usual, or we can follow Pennsylvania’s lead, investing in proven technologies and practices that cut emissions, prevent waste, protect public health, and drive economic growth.

By prioritizing methane mitigation, the state can chart a path that aligns with both the nation’s energy ambitions and the pressing need for climate action. This is not just a moral imperative but an economic one that promises cleaner air, healthier communities, and a thriving workforce for generations to come.

Commentary: Ohio should replicate Pennsylvania’s success cutting methane pollution is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Three Ohio companies are investing in hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles even as the U.S. market for electric vehicles continues to grow. Each has an innovative approach to the chicken-and-egg problem of having fuel available when and where drivers need it.

The Ohio companies’ focus on fuel cell passenger vehicles is unique nationwide, especially for a state that doesn’t yet have any public hydrogen fueling stations. California, where almost all of the country’s hydrogen fuel cell cars are registered, still has fewer than 60 public stations. 

“When we see hydrogen transportation deployment projects, it’s really more on the medium- and heavy-duty side,” said Mark Henning, a researcher at Cleveland State University’s Energy Policy Center at the Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs.

A hydrogen car is essentially an electric vehicle with an onboard fuel cell providing electricity alongside a battery. General Motors first displayed a prototype for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle back in the 1960s, but hydrogen cars weren’t available to U.S. consumers until leases for the 2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell began, with sales of the Toyota Mirai starting that fall. 

Hydrogen car sales have been essentially limited to California, where state policy and public funding supported the development of some public fueling stations. Since then, only about 18,000 fuel cell cars have been sold in the U.S.

Yet Ohio companies have been working on hydrogen energy for more than two decades. The state trade association, the Ohio Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Coalition, traces its history back to 2003. 

If successful, the current efforts could eventually provide another option for switching away from gasoline-powered cars. While electric vehicles are comparable in price, hydrogen cars can be refueled quickly — assuming the infrastructure is available — and offer more consistent range in cold weather. But much could hinge on how quickly hydrogen infrastructure develops, as well as how quickly and effectively plug-in electric vehicle makers deal with their own range and charging challenges.

One example of the desire for hydrogen vehicle alternatives comes from DLZ, an engineering, architectural and project management company headquartered in Columbus with offices across the United States as well as in India and Costa Rica. The company has a fleet of about 250 vehicles across the Midwest, including electric vehicles. In 2022, it added six Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell cars for use by professionals from its Columbus office.

“The hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have a lot more consistent performance in range and durability,” especially in cold weather, said Ram Rajadhyaksha, DLZ’s executive vice president. The range for the cars is sufficient for round trips the office’s professionals make to site locations around the state, he explained at the Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Coalition symposium in North Canton last month.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars aren’t sold in Ohio yet, so DLZ had its six Hyundai vehicles shipped from California to Columbus. Except for the fuel cells, dealers in Ohio can provide any necessary service the vehicles may need, Rajakhyasksha said.

The cars also need a regular source of hydrogen, so DLZ added its own. Its station in Columbus can generate about 20 kilograms of hydrogen per day, using electricity from a solar array atop a large building on company property. A net metering agreement lets DLZ sell any excess electricity from the array to the grid. 

Nonetheless, there were hurdles, including permitting, building codes, supply chain issues during the tail end of the pandemic, and even signage codes.

Made in Ohio

While California has been the country’s epicenter for fuel cell vehicles, Honda Motors is now producing the first American-made hybrid hydrogen vehicle at its Marysville plant in Ohio. Its 2025 CR-V e:FCEV model can go roughly 270 miles on a tank of hydrogen. There’s also a small electric battery which provides a driving range of about 30 miles. A 110-volt power outlet on the vehicle can run small home appliances or other equipment.

That range is about the same as Honda’s all-electric Prologue SUV, which also has a comparable list price. But the company believes there is room for both.

“It’s not one or the other,” said Dave Perzynski, assistant manager for hydrogen solutions business development at Honda, who also spoke at the Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Coalition symposium. “It’s using the right equipment at the right place at the right time.” The CR-V’s electric charging range is about right for his daily round-trip commute, he said, while the fuel cell offers flexibility for longer trips.

Honda’s goal is to achieve 100% decarbonization, Perzynski said. However, limits on local electric grids can make that difficult in some places. “If you can electrify it, if it works, then do that,” he said. “And once that stops working, then thank goodness we’ve been investing in hydrogen for the last 20 years, because there are places and times when you run out of power.”

As a practical matter, the Ohio-made cars’ initial market will be California. For other states, Honda is counting on others to build out the fueling infrastructure. 

“The only way we can do that is through a coalition,” Perzynski said. “We can’t build infrastructure alone.”

Building a network

Millennium Reign Energy in Dayton has a membership model to develop hydrogen infrastructure along with the demand for it. Its Emerald H2 network will help customers buy used fuel cell vehicles, while also providing access to hydrogen fueling stations designed and built by the company.

As the number of customers in an area grows, Millennium Reign Energy would swap out the fueling station for one with larger capacity. The smaller station would then go to another location. Access to the stations would be for members only, although members traveling outside their local area could use stations elsewhere.

“Our mission is to build the first transcontinental hydrogen highway,” said CEO Chris McWhinney as he explained the model at the fuel cell program last month. The company’s fueling stations are already operating at places outside the United States, as well as three private facilities in Ohio. The company plans to add its first Emerald H2 network stations in the Dayton area early next year.

The stations use electricity and water to make hydrogen, so using one with a nearby source of solar, wind, hydropower or geothermal energy can provide green energy, versus just moving emissions from tailpipes up to power plants, McWhinney said. That can also bring the cost for the hydrogen fuel down below that of gasoline, he suggested, as renewable electricity continues to get cheaper.

Hurdles ahead

Whether hydrogen-powered passenger vehicles are the best use for renewable energy remains questionable. A study published in Joule last August found battery-electric vehicles were roughly three times more efficient in using renewable electricity than fuel-cell vehicles.

“The battery-electric case is much more efficient than the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle,” said Greg Keoleian, co-director of the University of Michigan’s MI Hydrogen initiative, and one of the co-authors of the Joule study. Ideally, renewable energy will be used efficiently, given the limited amount on the grid now and the urgent need to decarbonize because of climate change, he said.

Battery electric cars also have a much bigger charging network, with nearly 70,000 stations nationwide, Keoleian noted. Cost is also an issue, he added, noting that hydrogen fuel in California currently costs about five times as much as gasoline would to go the same distance. 

Henning did note that one of Ohio’s public transit systems, SARTA, the Stark Area Regional Transit Authority, has had hydrogen buses as part of its fleet since 2016. Transit fleets also often need a handful of passenger vehicles, which might be able to use tbuses’ hydrogen fueling station while also qualifying for bulk discounts that may start with the acquisition of five or six vehicles, he said.

The Department of Energy’s recent push for hydrogen hubs might also play an indirect role, suggested Sergey Paltsev, deputy director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy. None of the hub projects so far focus on light-duty vehicles, but infrastructure developed for other purposes could make it easier to develop fueling stations. In that case, the Ohio companies could be angling for a competitive advantage. 

Yet much remains unknown about whether the incoming Trump administration will continue incentives begun in the Biden administration, Henning said. The law’s tax credit can apply to fuel cell vehicles with final assembly in North America, which might apply to Honda’s hybrid car — if the Inflation Reduction Act continues.

“I do think there is an appetite and there is a customer base for fuel cell electric vehicles, and I can imagine different use cases where that makes more sense” than an all-electric car, said Grant Goodrich, executive director of the Great Lakes Energy Institute at Case Western Reserve University. Multiple people in Northeast Ohio have expressed reluctance to buy an electric vehicle now, especially given the challenges of harsh winter weather.

Yet the infrastructure for electric vehicles is much farther ahead, and electric vehicle makers continue to work to improve performance. “Will the technology of battery and electric vehicles improve enough to stay ahead of FCEV adoption so that is able to keep that challenge at bay?” Goodrich asked.

Early last month, he would have put money on the EV makers to stay ahead. After hearing the presentations from Honda, Millenium Reign Energy and DLZ, he’s not so sure. 

“It’s not a done deal,” Goodrich said, noting that the hydrogen fueling experience also seems to be a more natural replacement for the habits customers have adopted as drivers of vehicles with internal combustion engines. “If it was to roll out faster, I think you could see some competition there.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated to clarify Greg Keoleian’s role.

Why Ohio companies are investing in hydrogen cars despite infrastructure issues is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

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Community and environmental justice advocates say the Biden administration is failing to deliver promised transparency and public engagement around its $7 billion clean hydrogen hub initiative.

“Engagement isn’t merely leading people into a process that’s going to happen with or without them,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit serving one of the regions where federally funded partnerships are trying to lay the groundwork for new local hydrogen economies. “It means meaningfully involving people in the decisions about the project.”

The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding in October 2023 for seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — clusters of interconnected projects meant to kickstart production of the fuel with little or no greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the department has held online briefings and virtual listening sessions for each hub, but advocates say they are not getting the kind of information necessary to assess who will be impacted by the projects and how.

Torres and others say they want more than just dots on a map. They want to know how hydrogen will be produced, how it will be used, and how it will get to end users. For projects that depend on carbon capture, they want to know how and where the carbon will be captured, transported and stored. And once the specifics are known, they want a chance to have meaningful input on the final projects.

Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and regional hubs said the answers to those questions are still being worked out and that more engagement is on the horizon.  Advocates are increasingly frustrated and fear that community input will come too late to affect how the hubs are developed.

“It doesn’t make sense … on one hand to say there’s not enough on paper to tell the public about, but on the other hand there is enough to allocate almost $1 billion for these companies,” Torres said.

Are events just ‘checking a box’?

When burned as a fuel source, hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide, but its production today almost always comes from fossil fuels. Some see a potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in certain hard-to-electrify sectors such as industry or heavy duty transportation, but the benefits for addressing climate change hinge on whether it can be produced cleanly and at scale.

The Biden administration’s hydrogen hub program, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to ramp up production of hydrogen made with low-carbon energy, including renewables, nuclear power, and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture. 

“It is literally like building the natural gas infrastructure that we have all over the place again for hydrogen,” said Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience manager for Battelle, the project manager for the Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, ARCH2, which includes projects for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A majority of its projects will use steam methane reforming to make hydrogen from natural gas, along with carbon capture and storage. Other projects in the hub plan to make hydrogen from waste gases or from electrolysis, which uses energy to split water molecules. 

In May, dozens of groups urged the Department of Energy to suspend funding discussions for the ARCH2 project until the public receives detailed information beyond general maps and short project descriptions. On July 31 the Department of Energy formally committed the first $30 million of federal funding to ARCH2, with a total of up to $925 million to be spent over the next decade or so.

Last month, the Department of Energy committed up to $1 billion for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, MachH2, which spans Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa and plans to produce hydrogen from a mix of nuclear power, wind energy and natural gas. The department will hold a December 9 briefing on MachH2.

In response to the Energy News Network’s questions about community groups’ complaints about a lack of outreach, a Department of Energy spokesperson provided a statement saying it “has been actively engaged with these communities in support of the economic playbook” of the Biden-Harris administration.

The ARCH2 project held a community outreach session in West Virginia in November, and additional meetings will be held in Ohio and Pennsylvania early next year, Bennett said. Some community group members protested outside at the West Virginia session but then came inside for a good discussion, he added.

Torres said there was no general presentation at the West Virginia meeting, and company representatives were present for only a handful of the hub’s projects. Even then, project information was still sparse. 

“It wasn’t an opportunity for people’s voices to be heard,” he said. “What is the value of these events other than checking a box for these companies?”

Advocacy groups focusing on the MachH2 project said months went by without getting updates or details. Then last month, they got less than 24 hours’ notice for a briefing with general descriptions about the MachH2 hub projects.

During that session, representatives for the Department of Energy said a decision on the hub’s funding commitment would come soon, “probably next week sometime,” said Susan Thomas, the legislative and policy director and communications manager for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. Minutes after the November 20 session ended, the Department of Energy announced the MachH2 funding commitment. 

“Our jaws were on the table,” Thomas said.

Details remain to be worked out

Groups have been trying to get answers from the Department of Energy for more than a year, said Chris Chyung, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters. In his view, the agency’s approach “is just flouting the law.” According to the Department of Energy’s website, engagement with communities and labor is a key principle required in hubs’ community benefits plans, which are part of hubs’ contractual obligations for funding.

Community groups learned in the November 20 briefing that the MachH2 community engagement would not address concerns related to any pipelines associated with the hub. Instead, those would be handled by a separate office within the Department of Energy. 

But a pipeline for northwestern Indiana “is absolutely part and parcel of [a] dirty hydrogen project that is part of MachH2,” and the community should get a say on it, said Lauren Piette, an attorney with Earthjustice, which does not consider hydrogen made with natural gas to be climate-friendly, even with carbon capture.

The Department of Energy spokesperson did not respond to the Energy News Network’s question about how community benefits for hub projects can fully be assessed if they don’t include consideration of issues and input related to necessary pipelines.

Representatives of the MachH2 and ARCH2 hubs who spoke at an Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Consortium program last month said they couldn’t practically engage in community outreach until funding commitments had been negotiated with the Department of Energy. Until then, it wasn’t certain whether each hub would move forward.

Also, as a practical matter, “there was no budget for these things,” Bennett said. Details for each hub’s projects are still being worked out, and ARCH2 is still trying to add additional project partners.

Even then, details for projects won’t be finalized until review under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Neil Banwart, who is the chief integration officer for the MachH2 hub and also the managing director for hydrogen at Energy Systems Network. 

“It’s not a certainty that all of the projects will get built in the locations that we shared on a map,” he said.

Chyung said he felt the comments about funding were “a complete dodge on behalf of these extremely wealthy national corporations that have said since 2023 they were eager to get started on community outreach.”

Advocates frustrated by lack of transparency, engagement on regional hydrogen hub projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Ohio’s school districts are facing an uphill battle to meet state student transportation requirements amid a persistent school bus driver shortage, resulting in financial penalties and a high-profile lawsuit filed by the state attorney general. 

The lawsuit and related fines levied against school districts for noncompliance with state regulations detail how the struggles in providing timely and reliable bus services for both public and non-public school students.

The compliance issues are in the spotlight after Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a lawsuit against Columbus City Schools in September, accusing the district of failing to fulfill its statutory transportation obligations. This lawsuit has added to the urgency for Ohio’s school districts, which are already contending with a shortage of qualified school bus drivers, to find solutions that will ensure the safety and punctuality of school transportation across the state.

Attorney General Yost’s lawsuit claims that Columbus City Schools failed to provide transportation for students attending charter and private schools, a legal requirement under Ohio law. According to the lawsuit, Columbus City Schools labeled the transportation of these students as “impractical” and did not notify parents until days before the school year began, which left families scrambling to find alternate transportation.

“As a parent and grandparent, I understand the importance of making sure every child has a safe way to get to and from school,” Yost said at the time. “These families have a right to choose what school is best for their child, and the law is clear that transportation is to be provided.”

The lawsuit seeks a writ of mandamus compelling Columbus City Schools to resume transportation services for affected students immediately and to properly notify parents of their rights. The Attorney General’s office also issued a cease-and-desist letter to the district on Sept. 3, suggesting that the district’s failure to comply is suspected of being a deliberate attempt to circumvent legal obligations.

Last month, Columbus City Schools extended transportation service to about 100 students who were previously denied service and filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Yost in a statement said he is not convinced and remains undeterred.

“It remains to be seen whether the district will live up to its press release and really transport these children,” he said. “The state already has received some information suggesting that it is not. … Simply put, this case is far from over.”

Fines and Compliance Challenges Across Ohio

According to data from the Ohio Department of Education, Columbus City Schools is not the only district facing compliance challenges. The department has collected substantial fines from several districts over the past couple of years due to delays in meeting transportation standards, which the school districts claimed were the result of school bus driver shortages.

In fiscal year 2024 alone, over $7.3 million in penalties were imposed on Columbus City Schools for failing to meet timing and operational requirements under Ohio Revised Code 3327.021. Youngstown School District was fined $1.91 million, while the state will collect nearly $250,000 from Middleton City Schools. The total of $9.5 million was 472 percent more than the state collected for fiscal year 2023 ($1.66 million) and 70 percent more than for fiscal year 2022 ($5.6 million).

An Ohio Department of Education spokesperson confirmed that refunds received by Columbus City Schools, Dayton City Schools and Toledo Public Schools were were the result of litigation settlement agreements.

So far for fiscal year 2025, the data indicates a $2.2 million fine to Columbus City Schools.

Under Ohio law, school districts are considered “out of compliance” if students arrive at school more than 30 minutes late or are picked up more than 30 minutes after dismissal for five consecutive days or 10 total days within a school year. Additionally, if a school bus fails to arrive at all, the district may also face penalties. These regulations are intended to ensure the reliability of transportation for all students, including those attending charter and private schools.

Todd Silverthorn, the second vice president of the Ohio Association for Pupil Transportation and director of transportation for Kettering Local City Schools, provided additional context on the challenges facing Ohio school districts. He explained that the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce is conducting a timing study to assess district compliance with Ohio Administrative Code 3301-83-05. This study evaluates whether routes are practical and efficient based on the most direct path between public and non-public schools.

Silverthorn emphasized the complexities of the timing study, as fluctuating student enrollment and significant bus driver shortages complicate compliance efforts. He noted that while state regulations are meant to uphold standards, the severe staffing shortfall has left school districts like Columbus City scrambling to cover essential routes, often falling short of the required timing standards.

“While state lawmakers may argue that there is adequate funding for transportation, the core issue is not funding but staffing,” Silverthorn said. “Districts are facing increasing difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified bus drivers. This isn’t about budget limitations but about the challenges inherent in the role [of driving] itself.”

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The Impact of Ohio’s Decreased School Bus Driver Staffing Level

The statewide bus driver shortage has intensified the transportation crisis. Before the pandemic, Ohio employed 25,706 active bus drivers. By August, that number had dropped to 18,817. This shortfall is affecting the 612 public school districts and over 1,000 chartered non-public schools statewide, many of which depend on reliable transportation services.

The role of an Ohio school bus driver requires a Class B commercial driver’s license, criminal background checks, drug and alcohol screenings, and the responsibility of managing student safety and behavior. The part-time hours and split shifts many school bus drivers receive combined with a high level of responsibility have deterred many potential applicants, creating a pipeline problem that exacerbates the staffing crisis.

As a result, school districts face challenges in meeting the compliance standards set forth by Ohio law, especially when drivers resign or retire. Schools have reported delays, cancellations and logistical obstacles that disrupt the school day and create stress for families.

In response to these challenges, school districts have implemented various strategies to optimize transportation resources. Some districts have consolidated school bus routes, modified school start times, and offered incentives such as signing bonuses and wage increases to attract and retain bus drivers. However, these adjustments are only temporary solutions to a deep-rooted problem.

“The reality is that we need a multi-faceted approach. This means not only increasing recruitment efforts but also rethinking the job to make it more appealing,” Silverthorn said.

If or until that happens, school districts like Columbus City Schools will continue to face pressure from state to provide transportation services on time and consistently.

“It shouldn’t take a lawsuit and an emergency motion to decide to follow the law. Columbus City Schools admitted the law was to transport the children. Glad these kids are finally getting the transportation they were entitled to,” Yost added last month. “But this is not the end. There are more kids who still are not receiving transportation despite the district’s clear obligation to provide it.”

The post Ohio School Districts Face Mounting Compliance, Staffing Challenges Amid Legal Battle appeared first on School Transportation News.

A Teen in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, has been cited and must appear in juvenile court after intentionally passing a school bus while it was unloading students, reported WTRF.

The incident reportedly occurred on Nov. 5, when a 17-year-old teen girl drove through the front yard of a residence to pass an Indian Valley Schools bus while the it was actively releasing children from the bus.

According to the news report, Deputy Grant Haun with the Tuscarawas County Sheriff’s Office initiated an investigation after authorities received a report of reckless operation in the Wainwright area. Multiple witnesses gave statements.

The investigation reportedly concluded when the driver of the car, whose name was not included in this writing, admitted that she intentionally passed the bus because she wanted to get home quicker.

Officials state via the article that the juvenile driver was issued a citation for failing to stop for a stopped school bus in violation of Ohio Revised Code Section 4511.75 (A). The teen is scheduled to appear in court at a later date.

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A successful regional collaboration to secure federal Inflation Reduction Act money in northeast Ohio has inspired a new, ongoing effort to help cities, counties, utilities and community groups coordinate on clean energy.

Three Cleveland-area foundations last month announced the launch of Power Up Local, which aims to play both a matchmaker and wedding planner role on large-scale, regional clean energy developments. The initiative plans to help connect potential partners, maximize projects’ community benefits, and facilitate joint funding opportunities such as federal grants, tax incentives, or green bank loans.

“This is really looking for the larger, more ambitious stakeholder projects that have direct stakeholder benefits,” said Daniel Gray, Power Up Local’s executive director. A big emphasis will be on assembling groups who “might not have worked with each other originally or understood where there’s an overlap” between clean energy and other goals.

The initiative could offer a new path for local leaders to advance in a place where state government remains hostile to clean energy. The continued availability of federal funding is in question following former President Donald Trump’s reelection, but Gray and others said they are confident some form of federal support for clean energy will remain during his second term.

The idea for Power Up Local grew out of collaboration among Cuyahoga County, the cities of Cleveland and Painesville, and other organizations on a $129 million grant application under the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program. The application was among those awarded funding in July. It includes money for closing a coal plant and building multiple solar arrays, including on four closed landfills.

Beyond reducing pollution, the project will help lower electricity costs and generate revenue. Some of that will in turn aid in conservation efforts for the West Creek Conservancy, including lakeside access for residents in Lake County. Gray did some work on the project as director of local strategies for the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, and local philanthropic support also helped in assembling the grant application.

The Cleveland Foundation, George Gund Foundation and the Fund for Our Economic Future are providing initial funding for Power Up Local. Initially, the program’s three full-time employees are being housed under Fund for Our Economic Future, with a goal of spinning it out as an independent nonprofit by 2027. 

The George Gund Foundation also provides funding to the Energy News Network. Like other donors, it has no oversight or input into the editorial process and may not influence stories.

Gray said Power Up Local will help stakeholders think bigger and more broadly about projects. For example, a project to redevelop a former industrial site may be able to help bring in other properties from a land bank or other group, potentially expanding into an economic redevelopment district that might support a microgrid, he suggested.

“We can add efficiency to projects, both financially and timewise,” Gray said.

Power Up Local will be a resource for organizations that want to add clean energy to a project but may not have the time or bandwidth to figure out how to do it. “They don’t necessarily know how to engage the marketplace,” Gray said.

And when it comes to funding, competitive grants will just be part of the story. A range of other credits or incentives can also help bring more clean energy. That raised a question, said Stephen Love, program director for environmental initiatives at the Cleveland Foundation: “What would it look like at scale beyond just the competitive grants to really unlock the whole scale of federal resources?”

While Power Up Local will work on clean energy projects, those projects must still be “net-neutral or revenue-positive” in order to promote economic development, Gray said. “We’re looking to develop as much community benefit as possible.”

Those benefits can come from lower electricity rates for people with high energy burdens, health benefits from lower pollution, job opportunities, conservation, access to parks, redevelopment of properties to attract businesses, and so on.

“This is about economic development. This is about creating economic opportunity in our communities,” said Love. As he sees it, clean energy can help drive that development.

Uncertainties ahead

No one knows what Trump’s presidential victory will mean for federal clean energy funding, but advocates are confident some funding will still be available.

“There are still grants to go after, and will likely still be grants to go after in the future,” Gray said. A repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law would take time, and much of the grant funding has flowed to districts that supported Trump in 2020.

Even if agencies under Trump stopped carrying out the law, “I don’t think the bulk of the IRA direct credits are going to go away,” Gray said. He noted that Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Bainbridge Township) is among 18 members of Congress who wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson this summer to support continuation of the energy tax credits.

Atlas Public Policy’s Climate Portal Program estimates those tax credits could exceed a quarter of a trillion dollars, with nearly another $250 billion of potential credits under the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Those credits can serve as refunds for nonprofits and local governments, which is how sewage treatment authorities in Columbus and Cincinnati plan to offset big chunks of the costs for biogas plants at two of their wastewater treatment facilities.

Financing opportunities will also be available from green banks, Gray said. Commercial banks also are looking to expand their portfolios for financing clean energy projects as part of corporate sustainability goals, he noted.

Power A Clean Future Ohio has already been working for several years to help its 50 local government members find ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions, based on their individual interests and priorities. Executive Director Joe Flarida said Power Up Local’s work will be a welcome complement to its ongoing work. 

“It just underscores the huge needs we have in the state of Ohio to invest locally and ensure that our local leaders and local governments have all the resources they need to do this work efficiently,” he said.

In Flarida’s view, an anti-climate approach by the incoming Trump administration “is also an anti-jobs approach.” And even if the federal government no longer treats climate change as a key priority, “that doesn’t change the reality that this is an issue we have to address head on,” he said.

Gray encourages local governments and other organizations with ideas for projects to reach out in the coming weeks and months.

“Now is the time to start thinking about what might be possible,” he said.

Ohio program wants to play matchmaker and wedding planner for clean energy collaborations is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to finalize more than $200 million in grant funding in the coming weeks to accelerate the clean energy transition at three Great Lakes shipping ports.

The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority, and the Illinois International Port District were each selected for grants last month under the Biden administration’s Clean Ports Program.

The U.S. EPA said it intends to finalize grant agreements by December or January. That action will obligate the federal government to pay roughly $3 billion in grants under the program, even if President-elect Donald Trump or the next Congress tries to repeal or block further action under the Inflation Reduction Act.

The $94 million grant announced for the Cleveland port is the largest it has ever received and will help it build on work that’s already underway to electrify and decarbonize its infrastructure. 

“It puts us at the forefront of decarbonization,” said William Friedman, president and chief executive officer of Cleveland’s port authority. “Now we’ll be able to start figuring out what’s the phase-in and then how do we move forward with the next round.”

The Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority will get approximately $25 million for solar panels, charging infrastructure and electric cargo handling equipment, and another $95 million will go to the Illinois EPA for solar, battery storage and hydrogen-related investments at the Illinois International Port District serving greater Chicago.

The largest share of grants will go to ports along the East and West coasts. “But the program is also intended to set the foundation for transitioning the entire port industry to zero emissions,” said Jennifer Macedonia, a deputy assistant administrator for U.S. EPA. “And there are important communities around many of our inland ports as well.”

The shipping industry accounts for roughly 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. While the bulk of that is from ships themselves, port operations typically rely on diesel power for most of their energy. And ships often burn fuel to power equipment even while they’re in port.

The EPA’s review process included ensuring that selected projects can achieve or exceed goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other pollution that can affect nearby communities, said U.S. EPA Administrator Michael Regan. Those criteria air pollutants are ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

The work is especially important for Ohio, which has lagged other Midwest states and regions in deploying strategies to reduce greenhouse gases, said Valerie Katz, deputy director for Cuyahoga Green Energy. “Our regional decarbonization efforts will reduce environmental exposure to toxic air pollutants for downstream Ohio communities.”

Funding for the Port of Cleveland will encompass work for electric cargo-handling equipment and vessels that serve the port, along with solar generation and battery storage, charging infrastructure and shore power for vessels. Project partners include Logistec USA, the commercial operator for day-to-day operations, as well as the Great Lakes Towing Company, which will build two electric tug boats.

Decarbonization is a “competitive advantage that will attract more shipping volume to our port,” said Baiju Shah, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. “Companies are striving to reduce their environmental footprints through their operations and value chains,” including Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. “In addition, electrifying the port operations supports our region’s clean air efforts.”

That’s especially important given the port’s location near the downtown lakefront and riverfront areas, Shah said. Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River are the focus for several waterfront development projects aimed at drawing more business and visitors to Cleveland.  

Funding for the Port of Detroit will go toward electric cargo-handling equipment, some vessels and railcar movers, along with charging infrastructure and solar generation. Part of the money also will be used to develop a roadmap for adding EV and hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority is part of the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, or MachH2, which was selected last year for $1 billion in Department of Energy funding for a hydrogen hub.

Funding for the Illinois International Port District will cover a variety of projects for its three ports, including hydrogen fueling infrastructure, solar energy and battery storage, and hydrogen and electric cargo handling equipment. Hydrogen and electric locomotives also are on EPA’s program selections list. The Illinois EPA is the lead partner for the grant work.

Like its counterpart in Cleveland, the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority had already begun working on plans to move to cleaner energy sources for Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. But zero-emissions equipment to move cargo is new in the U.S. shipping industry and is still generally more expensive than fossil-fueled counterparts.

“What’s great about the EPA grant is that it helps these businesses make the decision to choose this cleaner technology,” said Mark Schrupp, executive director for the Detroit port authority. Over time, costs for such equipment should come down, but the grants will help launch market growth.

Various projects among the 55 selected for grants last month have planning components and provisions for community engagement or workforce development. Planning work on emissions inventories can position other ports to move ahead with clean energy in the future, Macedonia said.

The U.S. EPA plans to move ahead swiftly to finalize grant agreements, which will have the effect of protecting the funds from a possible clawback under Trump or the next Congress.

“We will be awarding the grants in December of 2024 and January of 2025… so that money will be obligated on or before the end of this administration,” Regan said. Depending on the projects, implementation will occur over the next three to four years.

In Cleveland, that means a big chunk of work under the new grant will be taking place even as renovation of the Port of Cleveland’s Warehouse A and electrical work take place under its current projects.

“We’ll have to throw a lot here at the engineers and construction project management people to figure this out,” Friedman said. Yet the timing means it will be that much sooner for the port to move to zero emissions for its own operations.

Great Lakes ports will get a share of U.S. EPA funding to move shipping off fossil fuels is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Parents in Farmersville, Ohio, are concerned after a man with a baseball bat tried to get on a school bus and exposed himself to students, reported WHIO TV 7.

The incident reportedly occurred on Oct. 25, when a Valley View Local School District school bus was at one of its stops, and a man holding a baseball bat attempted to board the bus.

According to the news report, when the school bus driver told the man he could not be on the bus. The man, who is not identified in this writing, exposed himself and then left. However, authorities said they do not believe the man did not expose himself on purpose.

Police said the man walked toward the car behind the bus and hit it with his bat.

The man was reportedly detained and taken to Miami Valley Hospital for mental evaluation. The driver was recognized for not allowing the man to get on the bus.

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The parents of an 11-year-old boy who was involved in a fatal school bus crash in Springfield, Ohio, in August 2023, are speaking out about their son’s death, reported WLWT 5.

Aidan Clark was killed when he was ejected from his school bus as he and 51 other students were on their way to the first day of school on Aug. 23, 2023. A minivan traveling in the opposite direction crossed over the center line and caused the crash, which broke the school bus rear axle and caused it to overturn. It was the first on-board school bus fatality in Ohio since 2010.

Following the incident, Gov. Mike DeWine called for the Ohio Department of Public Safety to form a school bus safety working group to debate the topic of school bus seatbelts and other safety topics. After meeting several times last fall and hearing from a range of safety experts and school bus operators, the working group issued 17 recommendations on school bus safety, the majority of them focused on school bus drivers and training available to them, maintenance professionals and the community.

The van that crashed into the school bus was driven by Hermanio Joseph, a 36-year-old Haitian immigrant, who was found guilty on counts of felony involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide by a Clark County jury in May. He was sentenced to 9 to 13.5 years in prison with credit for time already served.

Nathan Clark, Aiden’s father, alleges politicians are using his son’s name and death for political gain this election season.

Mr. Clark said Aiden, who was 11 at the time, was not murdered but was accidentally killed. He also emphasized that the last thing his family wants is to continuously relive the worst day of their lives.

Joseph was found by investigators to only have a state ID card and a Mexico driver’s license at the time of the crash. He said that because he lives in the U.S. under temporary protected status for Haitians he did not have the proper documents to get his Ohio driver’s license. He also claimed the sun was in his eyes, causing him to drift into the opposite lane and strike the school bus.

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Work headed by an Ohio waste-to-energy company to make plastic from biodigester byproducts is among seven projects recently selected for federal grants to develop new ways to use captured carbon dioxide. 

The grants aim to advance the federal government’s goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in order to address ongoing climate change. 

Quasar Energy Group, headquartered south of Cleveland in Independence, designs and builds anaerobic digesters, in which bacteria break down manure, food waste, or other organic materials. Methane is the systems’ main gas output and can be used to power generators or heat buildings, among other uses. 

But anaerobic digesters also produce carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas which has fewer commercial uses. Customers today include fertilizer manufacturers, oil and gas companies, and food and beverage makers. But those markets are tiny compared to the amount of CO₂ scientists think will need to be removed from industrial emissions, or even pulled from the atmosphere, to deal with climate change. 

There’s a limit to how much carbon dioxide will be able to be stored in the ground, and community opposition to pipelines is another barrier to Midwest carbon capture plans. Using the carbon in products — such as cement or plastics — can be a useful alternative, especially if it displaces other fossil fuel inputs. 

On Oct. 9, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced funding for seven projects aimed at commercializing new approaches to incorporating carbon dioxide into products. The selections are aimed at hard-to-decarbonize sectors, said Ian Rowe, division director for carbon dioxide conversion at DOE’s office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. 

“There’s not going to be a non-carbon solution for those needs in the future, but we should make them from more sustainable forms of carbon,” Rowe said. “And carbon dioxide represents a feedstock that you can use.”

How the process works

Ohio is already a leader in plastics production that relies heavily on the fossil fuel industry. Hundreds of companies across the state play a role in manufacturing or the supply chain. And midstream processing provides a ready supply of natural gas feedstocks from the Utica shale play.

Quasar Energy’s team designed its process for making plastic so it will work well with biodigesters. Basically, the project will use lipids from algae as a feedstock for a type of polyurethane. Liquid effluent from the biodigester could help grow the algae and supply nutrients for it, such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

Carbon dioxide from the biogester’s gas would be another ingredient in the process. The project team estimates the process could cut carbon dioxide emissions at least 25%, compared to current technology for making the plastic.

The process already works on a bench-scale level in the lab, said Tao Dong, a chemical engineer with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, who is also working on the project. Other team members named in the group’s grant application to DOE include Caixia “Ellen” Wan at the University of Missouri, Xumeng Ge at Quasar, and Ashton Zeller, director of research at Algix.

Costs are an important factor for the Quasar team’s project or any other products aimed at displacing those made from fossil fuel sources. Those costs include expenses for “cleaning up” the biodigester gas to separate methane from carbon dioxide. But a chunk of that expense also can be allocated to the separated methane, which has its own value for energy, either for on-site use or for sale for use elsewhere. 

In other words, using the gas for making the plastic and for energy helps the economics for both uses, versus just flaring the gas into the atmosphere.

“Our process can be cost-effective,” said Yebo Li, Quasar’s chief innovation and science officer. 

The plastic made from the process also has an advantage from being a non-isocyanate polyurethane, said Mel Kurtz, president of Quasar. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration links isocyanates to various health problems, and some are potential carcinogens. So, a polyurethane plastic that doesn’t have them should reduce risks for workers at factories who would then use the material to manufacture products, such as shoes or other items.

“If [farms] can add another revenue stream, that can improve the economics” for biodigesters on farms, said Andy Olsen, a senior policy advocate for the Environmental Law & Policy Center, whose work focuses on energy issues relating to agriculture and is not part of the project team. 

It’s also important to make sure staff are properly trained to use and maintain the equipment properly, Olsen added, noting potential problems with leaked gases. Others question whether emissions offsets from some biodigesters have been overstated.

Next steps

The Quasar project team still faces hurdles. Work under the grant will focus on identifying and addressing risks so the technology can be scaled up.

One challenge will be maintaining algae ponds over time to provide the lipids for the process. Another will be optimizing the process for making them into small chemical building blocks called monomers and then assembling them into polymers, which are the plastic. Maintaining the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over time also will be important.

Other Midwest grant recipients include LanzaTech, an Illinois sustainable fuels company, and Washington University in St. Louis, which will develop a low-carbon process to convert carbon dioxide to high-quality carbon nanotubes. Those will be tested for use as anodes for lithium-ion batteries.

Whether these and other carbon management projects can scale up quickly enough for the United States to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 is a big question, said Rowe at DOE.

The energy source for the production process will also make a big difference, Rowe said. Algae can make their own food with carbon dioxide and sunlight. But it takes energy to maintain the ponds throughout the year. The equipment to process the algae and then make the lipids and biodigesters’ carbon dioxide into polyurethane also needs energy.

“Carbon management strategies go hand in hand with an increased deployment of cheap clean electricity. So, a lot of these won’t work without the other,” Rowe said. On the flip side, “if that energy does not come from clean sources, you’ve just produced something that is worse for the environment than if you dug it up and just used fossil carbon.” 

Where will captured carbon go? Ohio company among those seeking to embed it in new products is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

GOSHEN, Ohio – Petermann Bus, a student transportation leader dedicated to safety, has donated a school bus to Goshen Township Fire and EMS for emergency rescue training focused on large vehicles, which includes school buses, cement trucks, semis, and more.

This donation was made as part of Petermann Bus’s company-wide Partners Beyond the Bus community outreach program. These bus donations help repurpose retired, non-electric vehicles from the Company’s fleets, further contributing to the Company’s transition to alternative fuel-powered and zero-emission buses. In addition to this bus donation, the team has also contributed to the community through Stuff the Bus events and just this past summer, donated a “Grub Bus” to the Goshen Local School District as a way to deliver warm meals to students.

“We are extremely grateful for this bus donation from Petermann Bus,” said Edward Myers, Chief, Goshen Township Fire and EMS. “These larger vehicles are hard to obtain for training purposes and invaluable for the training experience our team gets out of it. While we hope to never respond to a school bus crash, in the event that we do, these trainings keep us prepared in becoming familiar with the structures of these larger vehicles. Thank you again to Petermann for their donation and contribution to our community’s safety.”

“Safety is and will always be our number one priority,” said Dan Harmon, General Manager, Petermann Bus. “We are glad that this bus donation will be put to effective use by the fire department for their safety training. There is a sense of pride to be felt knowing this donation will contribute to the overall safety of the community and our students, especially since we’ve been part of the community for over two decades. Thank you again to our firefighters and other frontline emergency and medical workers for their dedication to our community.”

About Petermann Bus: As an industry-leading student transportation provider, Petermann Bus provides safe and reliable transportation to students in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Since 1921, we have been committed to Excellence and upholding our mission of getting students to school safely, on time, and ready to learn. Through this mission and a grassroots approach to our operations, Petermann Bus has earned recognition as a trusted transportation provider among our Customers and the Communities we serve.

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Project 2025, a policy blueprint created by allies of former President Donald Trump, would increase Ohio households’ annual energy spending and cost the state tens of thousands of jobs by 2030 compared to a continuation of current federal law and policies, a new analysis finds.

Ending federal spending on climate mitigation, as Trump has pledged to do, would cost jobs along with savings from energy efficiency and reduced dependence on fossil fuels, explained Robbie Orvis, senior director for modeling and analysis at Energy Innovation, which released the analysis last week. 

And those losses would not be offset by expanded development of oil and natural gas, the report finds. 

Analyses for Ohio and 47 other states follow up on a nationwide forecast Energy Innovation prepared this summer, which projected a loss of 1.7 million jobs and billions in added energy spending for U.S. households under Project 2025 compared to current law and policies. Early deaths and greenhouse gas emissions that drive human-caused climate change would also increase, Energy Innovation reported.

Project 2025 bills itself as a “playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration.” Although Trump’s campaign has tried to distance itself from the work by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups, many of the authors played a role in his administration. The plan is also promoted by prominent backers of his campaign.

Among other things, Project 2025 refers to climate change as merely a “perceived threat.” The playbook calls for increased oil and gas drilling, repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, reduced regulatory oversight on environmental matters, an end to various equity programs and more. 

Approximately $10.5 billion in new investments and nearly 13,900 jobs have been announced for Ohio under the Inflation Reduction Act through the end of July, according to a Climate Power report released this summer, placing Ohio among the top 10 states for job gains.

“We think it’s important to be able to bring some numbers to this conversation,” Orvis said.

Projected impacts

Energy Innovation’s forecast for Ohio projects that by 2030, Project 2025 would add $150 per year to households’ spending for energy, including electricity, heating and transportation. By 2035, that number would climb to more than $260 per year. 

Among other things, slashing energy efficiency programs for buildings and other sources of greenhouse gases would result in higher energy usage — and bills. Gutting programs to incentivize electric vehicles and relaxing fuel efficiency requirements would also result in more fossil fuel use than would otherwise be the case, Orvis explained. Extra expenses from increased energy usage would “more than offset” lower prices per unit for fuel that might result from expanded oil and gas development, the analysis said.

Ohio would also have roughly 21,200 fewer jobs by 2030 and that figure could double by 2035 if Project 2025 goes ahead, Energy Innovation calculated. That includes offsets from sectors that might grow under the conservative blueprint, including the oil and gas industry, Orvis said. 

Those offsetting job gains wouldn’t necessarily be filled by local workers. A large share of the direct jobs in oil and gas development for Ohio’s top-producing counties for natural gas have been held by crews that came in from elsewhere and left afterward. The Ohio River Valley Institute noted that and other factors in its work showing that Appalachian petroleum-producing counties have lagged economically.

In contrast, 70% of a solar project’s workforce must be Ohio residents if a developer and communities want to use a property-tax alternative that can give companies a break in a project’s early years but provide more revenue for counties on a steady basis over the life of a project. Local skilled workers also especially benefit from energy efficiency work.

With roughly $4.9 billion less in clean energy investments, Ohio’s greenhouse gas emissions would climb, the Energy Innovations analysis found. Sources in the state would emit roughly 9 million more metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2030, compared to what they would under current federal policies. That figure would exceed 32 million metric tons in 2035. That’s comparable to the 2023 emissions from Ohio’s four largest coal plants, according to EPA data. 

Ohio is actually in the lower half of states for projected job losses and increased energy costs under the Project 2025 scenario, although it is among the top half for increased greenhouse gas emissions, Orvis said. What stood out most for him was the uniformity among all of the lower 48 states for which his team ran the numbers on Project 2025.

“Every state we looked at — every single one — there are net job losses and net GDP losses,” Orvis said.

Picking ‘winners and losers’

“It didn’t surprise me that you’re going to see costs increase” under Project 2025, along with job losses and impacts on gross domestic product, said Neil Waggoner, Midwest manager for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “The IRA and the infrastructure bill were not just to deal with climate and this immense crisis we all face, but also to do it in a way that supports American innovation, growth and the economy.”

In contrast, Project 2025 would “push forward an agenda that chooses winners and losers,” Waggoner said. “That’s fundamentally against innovation and growth and capitalism.” He also criticized Project 2025’s failure to consider the nuances of energy policy and forecast its impacts into the future.

“The end result is we’re going to pay more, and it’s going to have really bad impacts on the economy,” Waggoner said.

Uncertainty about federal rules on cross-state pollution made it difficult to calculate state-specific health impacts of Project 2025, Orvis said. The nationwide analysis projected we would see nearly 6,000 early deaths per year through 2030, compared to current policies. By 2050, that difference would be about 25,000 more early deaths each year under Project 2025 policies.

The work also didn’t drill down into which groups would be most affected by job losses, higher energy costs and so forth. But health impacts from pollution, higher energy burdens and higher poverty rates are already disproportionately high for historically underinvested communities.

“The impacts won’t be felt evenly across the board” if Project 2025 goes into effect, said Bishop Marcia Dinkins, founder of the Black Appalachian Coalition. “The tradeoff is always at the expense of marginalized people and people who are on fixed incomes.”

For people who are already struggling with high energy burdens and other issues, Project 2025 would be “a double economic blow,” Dinkins said. Prospects for health and the environment would also suffer, particularly given Ohio’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels and petrochemicals, she added.

“Without solutions around clean energy, it’s just going to make matters worse,” Dinkins said.

Project 2025 will raise Ohioans’ energy costs and cost the state jobs, report says is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

This fall’s election for three seats on the Supreme Court of Ohio is expected to play a pivotal role in deciding the state’s direction on renewable energy, utility accountability and other energy issues.

In addition to deciding appeals from lower courts dealing with energy and other topics, the seven-member Supreme Court of Ohio hears all challenges to cases from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and Ohio Power Siting Board. The commission broadly decides what utilities can do and how much they can charge ratepayers, while the siting board approves where energy generation and other infrastructure get built.

Judicial candidates do not campaign on issues, so voters won’t have a full picture of how they are likely to rule on energy-related cases. However, endorsements, campaign contributions, and a handful of decisions by incumbents offer some clues. 

The Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund has endorsed all three Democratic candidates — Michael Donnelly, Melody Stewart, and Lisa Forbes. Donnelly and Stewart are incumbents seeking another six-year term. Forbes is an appellate judge in Cuyahoga County, which includes much of greater Cleveland.

Meanwhile, the Ohio Oil and Gas Association and NiSource have given money to the campaigns of all three Republicans —Joseph Deters, Dan Hawkins, and Megan Shanahan. American Electric Power also gave money for Shanahan’s and Deters’ campaigns, data compiled by Open Secrets show. 

Deters was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine last year to fill a partial term and is challenging Stewart for a full term. Hawkins and Shanahan are trial court judges in Franklin and Hamilton Counties, respectively. 

Ideally, party jurisdiction should not matter when candidates run for judicial office, said Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, a law professor at Cleveland State University. And some past energy rulings have been unanimous, including a 2021 ruling reversing a PUCO decision favoring a FirstEnergy affiliate while Sam Randazzo was chair. 

Starting in 2022, however, a new state law added party affiliations on fall election ballots for appellate court judges. Republicans hold a 4-3 majority on the Ohio Supreme Court, but that balance could flip depending on the outcome of this election.

These are some of the energy issues the new court is likely to take up in the coming years:

Who gets the biggest say in where solar farms are built?

The Ohio Supreme Court still has to hear oral arguments and then decide solar farm siting cases for the Kingwood Solar and Birch Solar projects. Supporters of the projects argue the Ohio Power Siting Board acted unlawfully by treating the volume of local opposition as a deciding factor, rather than considering whether the substance of the objections outweighed other factors supporting the projects.

“How the judges approach those questions is going to have a big impact on how renewable energy projects move forward in this state into the future,” said Chris Tavenor, an attorney speaking on behalf of the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund.

If the court sides with the siting board, it could give local opposition groups more sway in project siting than a 2021 law already grants to county governments. The result could further empower groups with links to fossil fuel interests, which sometimes stoke fears about renewable power to build opposition.

The Kingwood case docket includes a friend-of-the-court brief filed on behalf of the Ohio Senate’s Republican majority, which was written as if it came from the whole Ohio Senate. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost then moved to strike a separate brief filed on behalf of the seven Democrats in support of the project. An August 7 ruling denied Yost’s motion, but Deters dissented and would have denied the Democratic Caucus a say in the case.

How long can regulators make developers wait for decisions?

Another case, Moraine, presents ongoing questions about the timing of Supreme Court appeals. In Moraine, the court let an energy consulting company appeal several PUCO decisions about out-of-state renewable energy credits, in essence taking the commission to task for delays in deciding the company’s request for it to reconsider the rulings. 

The court’s August 27 procedural ruling said the PUCO can’t avoid its legal duty to rule on rehearing requests within 30 days by giving itself more time. Donnelly agreed with the ruling, Stewart dissented, and Deters didn’t take part.

On one hand, the ruling should speed up renewable energy cases and maybe let developers get projects built more quickly. The ruling should also shorten how long consumers may have to pay contested charges that may ultimately be ruled unlawful.

On the other hand, the ruling on timing represents a shift in the law. The Ohio Power Siting Board’s arguments in an earlier Kingwood Solar appeal were very similar to those the PUCO made in the Moraine case. Yet in September 2023, six judges, including Donnelly, Stewart and Deters, agreed to dismiss the earlier Kingwood Solar case.

On September 4, the PUCO held the new Moraine ruling means rehearing requests in other cases were denied by law and suggested the time for any appeal has passed. An October 2 ruling repeated that position. 

“Instead of embracing the court’s pro-consumer ruling, the PUCO is undermining it,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis.

Will utility customers ever get refunds for unlawful riders?

An AES Ohio case aims to block more than $150 million in refunds for allegedly unlawful “stability charges” that the PUCO said would be refundable “to the extent permitted by law.” The utility had gone back to the old subsidy rider after a later one was ruled unlawful. 

AES is also trying to use the August 27 Moraine ruling to say the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel missed its opportunity to appeal in any event. 

“AES’s latest move to avoid giving refunds to its 500,000 consumers should meet with sound defeat,” Willis said. “To protect consumers, the court should proceed to oral argument and allow justice to run its course.”

The case will test the limits of language about refunds in a 2019 case, which held FirstEnergy’s so-called distribution modernization rider was unlawful. Donnelly’s opinion there said no refund was available for the money already paid, because the PUCO hadn’t made the rider refundable. Stewart was among the judges who agreed.

What penalties will FirstEnergy face for its role in Ohio’s HB 6 scandal?

A review of those rider charges is now among four FirstEnergy cases before the PUCO relating to the ongoing House Bill 6 corruption scandal. An evidentiary hearing on another of the cases dealing with corporate separation is set to start this month. The rider review and the other three cases will likely have hearings next year.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. Charges in at least one case may be refundable through future bill adjustments. And even if consumers don’t get refunds in the other cases, FirstEnergy could be liable for penalties. So, some or all of the cases will likely end up at the Ohio Supreme Court.

Deters recused himself from a case last year in which the court let the Ohio Attorney General’s office seize assets of former PUCO chair Sam Randazzo. Although the notice didn’t say why, Deters previously worked with lobbyist Matt Borges, who was convicted last year on federal criminal charges related to HB 6. Deters also has sat out several appeals from the PUCO, where his brother is a commissioner. 

Will drilling continue to be allowed under state parks and wildlife areas?

Natural gas cases could also end up at the Ohio Supreme Court. One case challenges the constitutionality of a 2023 law that labeled natural gas “green energy” and jump started regulatory action to allow drilling and fracking under state parks and wildlife areas. Briefing ended last year. The trial court has not yet made its decision.

Another case seeks to challenge instances in which the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission decided to solicit bids to lease areas under specific state parks and wildlife areas for drilling and fracking. The trial court dismissed the appeals in February. The case is currently on appeal.

Whether either case goes to the Ohio Supreme Court isn’t a foregone conclusion. Much will depend on how the courts rule, said Megan Hunter, an attorney with Earthjustice who represents several environmental groups in the cases.

Judging the judges

Common Cause encourages voters to Judge the Ads for court candidates with a skeptical eye. Watch for emotional framing. And question claims that may be inaccurate or taken out of context. Also note which groups pay for those ads, Common Cause advises: Question who is behind those groups and what they may stand to gain.

Just as importantly, listen carefully to the candidates. “Focus on judges who are talking about principles of fairness and upholding our democracy as an important aspect of how our state works,” Tavenor said.

“And really just pay attention to whether or not the judges are talking in partisan language versus nonpartisan language,” he added. “Our judges really shouldn’t be focused on the goals of political parties.”

Ohio high court races will decide future of state’s energy transition and utility fairness is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A Teague Middle School student in Florida was injured on Friday, after a tree branch fell on the school bus and broke its window, reported Click Orlando.

The incident reportedly occurred when the school bus was making a right turn. A branch from a nearby tree broke and hit the back window .

A child that was on board the bus received a minor cut due to broken glass. The student was treated at the scene, no other injuries were reported.

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Related: Deadly Hurricane Helene Closes Schools in Multiple States Amid Catastrophic Flooding
Related: Tropical Storm Debby Makes Landfall in Florida, Brings Heavy Rain
Related: Ohio Man Smashes School Bus Window
Related: Ohio Child Struck by Vehicle While Getting Off School Bus

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That same Friday afternoon, a tree fell on an Ohio school bus with students on board, reported Fox 8.

West Chester Police said the tree that fell on the Lakota Local school bus also toppled electrical wires.

Students that were on the bus were kept inside the bus as a safety precaution, until crew from Duke Energy arrived at the scene and defused the situation.

No injuries were reported at the time of the incident.

The post Trees Fall on School Buses with Students on Board appeared first on School Transportation News.

CINCINNATI, Ohio – First Student, the trusted school transportation and technology provider to millions of families across North America, announced today the launch of First Services, an all-encompassing division that will solve a wide and growing range of school transportation needs. First Services reflects the company’s success and growth, allowing First Student to build, and now bundle, stand-alone services for districts, an essential offering that achieves greater cost savings for districts and the opportunity for partnership in specific areas of transportation rather than a full-service model.

First Services will help districts incorporate technology, electric school bus charging, routing, fleet maintenance, and behavioral training to improve student transportation. First Services will make its experts available to all school districts, regardless of whether they contract their transportation or manage it in-house, enhancing transportation for students and creating essential budget flexibility for districts.

First Student has the following services and consulting accomplishments:
27% reduction in behavior incidents on vehicles using FirstServes program
30,000 buses routed each year across all major routing software platforms
1,250 qualified and highly engaged technicians who hold over 3,200 ASE certifications and maintain more than 45,000 vehicles
$425 Million secured for electric school bus customers in EPA funding
30+ EV experts to assist districts across North America with deployment

“For us, it starts and ends with helping students reach their full potential. We have a rich history and an incredible team. Districts and their students will benefit from our 100+ years of experience and the processes and efficiencies we have developed providing 1 billion trips a year across 20,000+ schools and districts,” said First Student CEO John Kenning. “First Services leverages our industry-leading experience providing safe, reliable transportation and our team of experts to aid districts with their needs from technology to training, from fleets to maintenance. Helping districts improve transportation and lower their costs, will allow them to focus on education while we provide support to ensure every trip to and from school is an exceptional one.”

First Services starts by engaging districts and identifying where they need help meeting goals including:

Optimizing school bus routes
Keeping buses running efficiently
Managing maintenance programs
Revamping operations
Electrifying school bus fleets
Improving the student experience

“First Student’s priority always is providing the best and safest ride for all students but too often, school districts face budgetary pressures that make this even more challenging. First Services unlocks cost savings for districts and greater opportunity for students and their families,” said First Student Vice President of Consulting Leslie Norgren. “Our expert consultants will work with districts to evaluate their daily transportation operations, bus routing, electrification, fleet maintenance, management, and safety and find opportunities to further improve transportation services. We are proud that our success has allowed us to expand our offerings for districts, and we look forward to delivering an even better experience for the students we serve.”

First Services experts then provide insights, analysis, recommendations, training, and turn-key solutions, freeing the district to focus on other priorities. The umbrella of services includes:

Fleet as a Service
Fleet as a Service (FaaS) allows districts to design a program that meets their transportation needs and lowers costs. Under FaaS, districts can build a tailored set of services and maintain complete control of their transportation operation. First Services can assist with bus procurement, vehicle maintenance, technician training, and best practices.

Maintenance as a Service
Maintenance as a service provides districts with best-in-class full service maintenance as a stand-alone contract. Our dedicated team will maintain district vehicles in a district-owned facility or one of our 100+ ASE Blue Seal Certified shops across North America. With maintenance as a service, districts benefit from a reliable and well-maintained fleet without worrying about parts, technician staffing or varying maintenance costs.

Electrifying Fleets
First Student is the largest operator of electric school buses in the world with nearly four million miles of service with EVs. As more school districts look to modernize their fleets with electric school buses, First Service’s EV experts can assist districts with grant applications, infrastructure design, hardware and software selection, charger and bus selections, site assessments, utility outreach and construction, and deployment. First Services support in the EV process allows for a reduction in implementation lead times and cost.

FirstServes
FirstServes is First Student’s premier, expert-backed training and support program, developed in conjunction with top children’s hospitals, behavioral psychologists and education professionals. The program is designed to help school districts and on-vehicles staff meet the individualized needs of all students, including those with intellectual, physical or emotional disabilities. The program empowers bus drivers and attendants with specialized training to support students on the bus, respond to behaviors and de-escalate situations to ensure all children show up to school ready to learn.

Operations
First Services also provides daily operations assessment. All aspects of day-to-day operations are analyzed, including dispatching, staffing, daily management, safety, communication and Key Performance Indicators, allowing our experts to identify opportunities to improve overall effectiveness.

Routing
Districts can receive a routing efficiency and effectiveness analysis as a stand-alone option from First Services. It includes examining routes, school schedules and bus utilization. First Student manages the routing of more than 30,000 vehicles each year, working with all major routing platforms. The evaluation can help districts improve on-time performance and reduce costs.

About First Student:
As the leading school transportation solutions provider in North America, First Student strives to provide unmatched care and the safest ride to school to 5.5 million students every day. With a team of highly trained drivers, the company will complete 1 billion student trips during the 2024-25 school year. First Student delivers reliable, quality services, including full-service transportation and management, special-needs transportation, fleet electrification, route optimization, and scheduling, maintenance, and charter services with a fleet of about 45,000 buses. For more information, visit firststudentinc.com.

The post First Student Launches First Services, Creating Comprehensive Expertise-Driven Offering for School Transportation Needs appeared first on School Transportation News.

A newly published study examining property values near dozens of large Midwest solar farms has found no significant negative impact — and even a slight positive effect — from the projects, according to the data. 

Loyola University researcher Gilbert Michaud has attended scores of community meetings about proposed solar projects across the Midwest. In past research, he quantified that property values were the most common concern brought up in local hearings about proposed utility-scale solar.

And while solar arrays may have an aesthetic impact, property values are influenced by a wide range of other factors, such as the quality of schools and the local economy.

“I’ve observed a lot of the negative comments framed as ‘I think’ or ‘I saw something on social media,’” said Michaud, an assistant professor of environmental policy at the School of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago. So he sought to “elevate the discussion from ‘I think, I think, I think,’” by injecting it with some hard data.

His latest study, published in the December 2024 issue of the journal Solar Compass, looked at property values surrounding 70 utility-scale solar projects in the Midwest and found they actually had a minor positive effect — increasing values 0.5% to 2%. 

“While the impact itself — of a few thousand dollars — might not be incredibly meaningful,” said Michaud, “clearly these projects drive economic development in rural communities, through jobs, tax contributions, etcetera, which in turn increase residential property values.”

Emotions running high 

Michael Wildermuth, a landowner in Allen County, Ohio, was glad to hear about the proposed 300 MW Birch Solar farm, since he supports clean energy and welcomed the economic benefits. Wildermuth cofounded an organization, Allen Auglaize Coalition for Reasonable Energy (named for the two counties where the project would be sited), to advocate for the project as it faced local opposition.

“The nearest neighbors became enraged so quickly and voiced their rage so loudly that others were placed in a reactionary mode,” Wildermuth said. “The neighbors were greatly concerned with property values and flooding. The landowners were afraid of these vocal neighbors, the public officials were afraid of being on the wrong side of a political ‘hot potato’ issue.”

The developer appealed to the Ohio State Supreme Court, and Allen Auglaize Coalition for Reasonable Energy filed an amicus brief in support of the solar farm. Wildermuth wishes more data about property values had been available during the debate. He also thinks opponents ignored the $81 million the developer estimated it would contribute to the economy, with local officials saying the project would have little local economic benefit since the power would go to an Amazon facility.

“Just get people ‘all het up’ and you don’t have to deal with reason and facts,” Wildermuth said.

“Do I think solar farms could actually improve property values or the financial well-being of landowners and neighbors of solar farms? Yes, I do. We argued that. We also pointed out that, in the rural area where the farm was planned, the properties would remain stable for 30 years,” preventing them from being developed for other purposes that neighbors may find less desirable. 

Shining new light

The study, co-authored by Loyola graduate Sampson Hao, notes that the benefits of rooftop solar on energy bills and property values are well-documented. But less is known about how utility-scale solar farms impact nearby properties — even though utility-scale solar accounts for about three-quarters of new solar development. 

The study reviewed 70 solar farms built in the Midwest between 2009 and 2022, from a database by Berkeley Laboratory including solar farms over 5 MW. Hao and Michaud analyzed property values compiled by real estate firm Zillow, comparing values five years before a solar project became operational, with values at the operational date, which is often about two years after construction starts. 

They aggregated by zip code, and controlled for factors like the COVID-19 pandemic that could affect housing values in a given year. Three-bedroom houses were used as a measure of overall property values. They also analyzed “control group” zip codes near the solar farm zip codes, but without solar farms, to account for other factors that might affect property values.

Michaud noted that while the number of bedrooms and other factors have a much larger impact on property values, the small positive impact that nearby solar farms could have could be similar to that of cultural amenities, like arts centers. Solar farms can also have an impact on schools — a major factor in determining property values — since solar projects augment local tax bases. Solar developers also often make ongoing contributions to school districts in the form of donations, supplies and energy education opportunities. 

The study showed high numbers of solar farms going online in 2017 and 2021, with a smaller spike in 2020. 

The projects included in the study range from a 10 MW urban installation in Chicago, installed by Exelon in 2010, to the 268 MW Riverstart Solar Park in Indiana, from 2021. Only 11 of the 70 projects studied were over 100 MW in capacity. Indiana had the most arrays at 22, followed by 14 in Minnesota, eight in Michigan and seven in Illinois. 

The most beneficial impact on property values was from solar farms between 5 and 20 MW in size, perhaps in part because these can be hidden by vegetative buffers. 

“The paper is not about a house that’s 200 feet away from a solar project, that’s very rarely the case,” said Hao, noting that developers often offer to buy properties at above market value in such situations. “We wanted to look at a bigger scale. A project between 5 and 20 MW, you’re really not supposed to even see these with your bare eyes.”

Midwestern focus 

Michaud said that debunking myths around solar farms is particularly important in the Midwest, where there is much untapped potential for solar. While it has less sun than the Southeast and California, which have led the nation in solar farm development, the Midwest has massive stretches of agricultural land where solar can be deployed along with crops.

“This is a really important finding for Midwestern government officials, land owners, and many others to know about,” Michaud said. “Many of these folks are now making decisions about whether to host a large-scale solar project in their community, and the potential impacts to property values is often something that comes up in local debates and at local hearings. Data can help tell a story and move the debate beyond anecdotal or subjective arguments.”

The Loyola study cites a 2018 analysis of 956 specific solar farms by a University of Texas researcher that found no conclusive evidence of impact on property values one way or another. The Loyola researchers also noted a study by Berkeley Laboratory that found about a 1% decline in property values around 2,000 solar farms in six states on the east and west coasts and in Minnesota.

“Most Midwestern states have 10 to 20 gigawatts of potential utility-scale solar in their queue, and developers are coming off of the coasts where the grid is more congested and there is less land for development, targeting agricultural land in the center of the country,” Michaud said. “Finding a large plot of land with good solar irradiation and access to a substation is the sweet spot for a lot of solar developers, and in essence, positive attributes of farming crops in the Midwest are also positive attributes for farming ground-mounted, large-scale solar.” 

Perception becomes reality 

The study notes the irony that perception plays a significant role in determining property values, and fears about property value declines can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

“Projection and speculation drive market forces,” Michaud said. “A farmer might be angry that a solar farm is going in the community, he’s going to sell and move to Florida. A buyer thinks, ‘maybe I can negotiate this price down,’ and the house sells for less than its value, and an appraiser looks at that. But none of this is real, it’s just based on speculation and emotion, which then drives data points … it all started with an emotional response.” 

Hao theorized that developers who make poor choices in siting and managing solar farms can have an impact on property values elsewhere, if negative stories about solar spread by word of mouth or social media. 

“Is a developer doing their best to have as much of a buffer as economically feasible?” he asked. “Is the developer making vegetative screenings so you’re not going to see millions of panels? Is the developer doing their best to move the inverter to the center of the leased land so noise doesn’t get over the road? There’s a lot of things at the end of the day that developers can do better. It’s up to the developers to really step up their game to eliminate those potential negative effects.” 

The Loyola study notes that solar developers often do things like hosting county fairs or supporting local organizations that can increase property values. Michaud said it’s possible such dynamics were reflected in their data showing small increases in property values, along with other benefits.

“From an economic perspective,” Michaud said, “locals should increasingly look at these data to understand the job opportunities, wages paid, new tax revenues and negligible or positive impacts on property values, and realize that large-scale solar projects might actually be an amenity in their community.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Michael Wildermuth planned to lease land for the Birch solar project, and that he personally filed an amicus brief in the case. The story has also been updated to clarify the scope of Gilbert Michaud’s research.

Midwest study finds solar farms don’t hurt property values — and they may even boost them is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The driest summer in more than a decade prompted an Ohio watershed district this summer to take the unprecedented step of limiting the use of water for oil and gas fracking.

The restrictions applied only to Atwood Lake, a popular boating and fishing spot southeast of Canton that has experienced a foot and a half drop in water levels over the past few months of drought.

It’s a scenario some environmentalists anticipated years ago, saying that climate change will require state and local officials to more carefully regulate the use of water for oil and gas extraction.

“They’re not being proactive enough,” said Leatra Harper, director of the FreshWater Accountability Project, stressing that the lakes are public resources. “The obvious issue is there aren’t adequate protections.”

Hydraulic fracturing, as it’s more formally known, pumps millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals down into oil and gas wells. The process causes cracks in petroleum-bearing rock, and sand in the fluid props the cracks open. Oil and gas flows from the fractures into the well and up to the surface.

The process uses millions of gallons of water for each horizontally drilled well, and well pads built within the last 12 years often have six wells. The water can be recovered and recycled to some extent. Eventually, though, the water must be disposed of in underground injection wells. That step permanently removes it from the water cycle.

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District manages ten lakes and four dry dams in southeastern Ohio for purposes of flood control, recreation and conservation. One of its biggest customers for water sales is the oil and gas industry.

“We’re not in a crisis situation by any stretch of the imagination, but this was just our balancing act to make sure we protect, as much as we can, all of our missions,” said Craig Butler, chief executive of the district. He estimated less than one inch of Atwood Lake’s decline can be attributed to oil- and gas-related withdrawals.

On August 28, the district curtailed water withdrawals by 75% from Atwood Lake. The following week, it curtailed withdrawals from the lake completely.

Lots of water

Under Ohio law, oil and gas drilling operations are generally allowed to withdraw from state waters an average of up to 2 million gallons per day in any 30-day period. Sixty million gallons would fill nearly 91 Olympic-sized swimming pools. 

While the total number of gallons sold is huge, it’s relatively small compared to the billions of gallons in the district’s lakes. Butler compared it to two or three sheets in a notebook.

“We’re really comfortable when we say it’s a negligible impact based on the size of our reservoirs,” Butler said.

Oil and gas companies pay a price for the water — around $3 per 1,000 gallons, according to Ted Auch, Midwest program director for FracTracker. He and other critics think the price should be higher.

“We charge as much as we can,” Butler answered, but if the district’s price gets too high, oil and gas companies can “stick their straw in” elsewhere, such as where a stream crosses private property. Then they may be able to suck out even more without a formal agreement with the watershed organization.

And because some of those sources flow into the district’s lakes, the effect on the district’s water resources would be largely the same, without the district getting revenue from the sales. Some of the funds from the oil and gas industry have paid for efforts to improve water quality and minimize flooding to improve the area’s resilience to climate change, Butler added.

The situation reflects a shortcoming in state law, said Melinda Zemper, a spokesperson for Save Ohio Parks.

“It is clear our state legislators ignore the depletion and contamination of our precious fresh drinking water used in the fracking process,” she said. “And there will always be another landowner who wants oil and gas revenue from leasing mineral rights or selling water flowing through his or her property.”

Operators recycle a lot of the water that’s withdrawn, and the fracking process has gotten more efficient over the years, said Mike Chadsey, a spokesperson for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

Getting hard data on recycling is difficult, however. FracFocus, a data clearinghouse, has some data on the composition of fracking fluids, but reporting is voluntary.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, oil and gas ranks seventh out of its eight registered water use categories. The agency’s 2022 water withdrawals map shows those other categories include public water supplies, agriculture, utilities and other classifications.

Total water withdrawals for the oil and gas industry that year were about 5.17 billion gallons, according to data provided by Karina Cheung, an ODNR spokesperson. A 2024 U.S. Geological Survey report said peak withdrawals reached approximately 5.75 billion gallons in 2017.  

Looking ahead

Questions about future water use for fracking will remain after the current drought ends — possibly soon from the remnants of Hurricane Helene. 

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District does a careful review of any company’s request for water withdrawals before a contract is signed, Butler said. Contracts also say water withdrawals can be curtailed if the district deems it necessary, as it did at Atwood Lake, he added.

Critics like Auch contend various data gaps should be filled to ensure more complete reporting. They also want any pre-withdrawal reviews to be more conservative and forward-looking.

Consideration of potential impacts should focus more on possible water-deficit years like this one, Auch said. Otherwise, “you are rapidly altering the savings bank of your watershed by depleting the resource that it has to carry over from year to year.”

Planning also should cover a longer time horizon, said Julie Weatherington-Rice, a hydrogeologist with Bennett and Williams Environmental Consultants in Columbus. Ohio might generally expect warmer, wetter and wilder weather as climate change continues.

Among other things, Ohio is seeing some intense storms, as well as periods of heavy rainfall. Those heavy rains might bump up the total yearly precipitation, but they don’t soak into the ground the way milder, more sustained rains do, Weatherington-Rice said. That could affect groundwater supplies for local areas, causing them to look for backup supplies, she said. And droughts can still occur, as this year shows.  

Water planning also should account for likely migration into Ohio as climate change has more severe impacts elsewhere, Auch said. “We need to start looking at water resources out 10, 15, 30 years.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated the amount gas companies pay for water. It is around $3 per 1,000 gallons of water, not $3 per gallon.

Ohio drought renews worries about massive use of water for fracking is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, leaves the stage after speaking during a campaign rally at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on Sept. 18, 2024 in Uniondale, New York. Trump held his first rally after Saturday’s apparent assassination attempt, the second one in two months after being injured at a rally in Butler, Penn. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will depart from the presidential swing-state map with visits to Ohio and Colorado in the coming weeks to continue to promote debunked viral stories smearing immigrant communities in those states.

At a Wednesday evening rally in New York, Trump said he would visit Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, towns that he and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have singled out as being harmed by immigration.

Trump falsely claimed during the Sept. 10 presidential debate that Haitian migrants in Springfield ate residents’ pets. Debate moderators corrected the statement, which has also been disputed by officials including the state’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. But Trump continues to cite the town to support his hardline immigration position.

Speaking to supporters in Uniondale, New York on Wednesday, he falsely claimed that migrants in the town were there illegally and said 32,000 arrived in a matter of weeks.

Estimates from official sources based on government data range from 12,000 to 20,000 Haitian arrivals since 2020. Most are in the country legally, with many given Temporary Protected Status that allows migrants from certain countries affected by violence and other circumstances to live in the United States.

Trump described Springfield and Aurora — where a separate viral rumor imagined Venezuelan gangs took over an apartment building —  as dangerous places, without evidence to support that claim, from which he might not escape.

“They’ve got to get much tougher,” he said of Springfield city leaders. “I’m going to Springfield and I’m going to Aurora. You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Gotta do what I gotta do. ‘Whatever happened to Trump?’ ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”

Neither Ohio nor Colorado are among the seven competitive states that will decide the presidential election, but the stops would serve to highlight Trump’s focus on immigration as his core campaign issue.

Hispanic heritage

The Trump campaign framed immigration in a different way during a call with reporters Thursday morning celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.

On the campaign call, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican whose parents emigrated from Cuba, said life was better for all Americans, including Hispanic Americans, during Trump’s presidency than under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.

Rubio focused on economic factors and fear of crime.

“That impacts everybody,” he said. “I think it has special meaning in the Hispanic American community because you have to understand that whether it was your parents, your grandparents or yourself, you came here because you wanted a better life. They weren’t happy with their life somewhere else. It was unsafe. You couldn’t get ahead. And so they came to the United States in hopes of fulfilling their dreams and their hopes for themselves and for their families.”

In a White House event for Hispanic Heritage Month Wednesday, Biden touted job numbers for Hispanic Americans, saying his administration oversaw the “lowest Hispanic unemployment rate on record.”

Biden criticized Republican rhetoric on immigration, celebrating the United States’ identity as “a nation of immigrants,” calling on Hispanic Americans to vote for Harris against Trump in November.

“This is the single most consequential election in maybe the lifetime of anyone standing here, because it matters,” he said. “The other team doesn’t see the world like we see it. They don’t have the same attitude we have. They are the most close-minded people I’ve ever dealt with.”

White dudes

A pro-Harris group representing a different demographic launched a $10 million ad campaign in battleground states Thursday.

White Dudes for Harris released a one-minute video ad, the first in the eight-figure campaign, targeting white male voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to a news release from the group.

White men vote more Republican than other groups, and have backed Trump by wide margins in his previous White House runs. His successful 2016 campaign won white men nationwide by a 62% to 32% margin, according to the Pew Research Center. Trump carried Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by a combined 80,000 votes in 2016.

The ad opens by bemoaning that Trump had damaged white men’s reputation. A male narrator then compliments Harris’ and vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s approach.

“They’re actually talking to guys like us — no lectures, no BS,” the voiceover says. “Just real solutions that protect our freedoms and help us take care of the people who matter.”

Oprah and Adelson

The Harris campaign is scheduled to hold a virtual event with famed actress, producer and former talk show host Oprah Winfrey on Thursday evening.

Organizers expect the event to reach more than 200,000 people in real time, with additionally tens of millions likely to see clips shared afterward.

Trump is scheduled to appear with conservative megadonor Miriam Adelson in a Washington event titled “Fighting Anti-Semitism in America.” Adelson is Jewish and a vocal advocate of U.S. support for Israel.

Friday, Harris will campaign in Georgia and Wisconsin.

Trump is scheduled to hold a rally Saturday in North Carolina.

Polling snapshot

Polls published Wednesday and Thursday showed a mixed view of the race.

Harris and Trump were tied nationally at 47% in a New York Times/Sienna College poll that surveyed likely voters from Sept. 11 to Sept. 16. Harris led, though, in the key state of Pennsylvania, 50% to 46%, in the same poll.

A separate poll, conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, showed the Keystone State deadlocked at 49%.

Marist found Harris led by 1 point in Wisconsin, 50% to 49%, and by  5 points in Michigan, 52% to 47%.

Those states, along with Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, will likely decide the election.

Nebraska pushed to adopt winner-take-all

Two other races, though, could be competitive.

Maine and Nebraska both allocate two electoral votes to the winner of the state popular vote, and the rest by congressional district.

Purple districts in each state will likely go to the candidate who loses the state overall, though some Republicans are pushing  Nebraska to adopt a winner-take-all system.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen discussed the issue Wednesday with state senators, and the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation endorsed a winner-take-all approach in a Wednesday letter posted to X.

Nebraska’s statewide electoral votes are nearly certain to go to Trump, whose campaign has pressured state officials to nix the current system.

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

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