A hulking steel plant in Middletown,Ā Ohio, is the city’s economic heartbeat as well as a keystoneĀ origin storyĀ ofĀ JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to beĀ Donald Trump’s vice-president.

Its future, however, may hinge uponĀ $500 million in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a ā€œscamā€ and is a Trump target for demolition.

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

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


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  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    ā€œMy focus is my constituents and doing what’s best for them—how else will this empty floodplain produce $1 million for people in our town?ā€ Messer said. ā€œNothing is going do that but solar. I’m happy to use the IRA, but if I had a national role my view might be different. I mean printing money and giving it away to people won’t solve inflation, it will make it worse.ā€

    This is real proof that a basic economics class should be mandatory to hold political office. This guy is the mayor and he hasn’t a clue how inflation works. Yet he’s talking to the press like he’s some kind of authority.