Days after a failed assassination attempt, Donald Trump picked Ohio senator JD Vance as his running mate and Vice Presidential nominee. The former Venture Capitalist though, is a known critic of climate change and renewable energy. Interestingly, his home state Ohio has embraced solar power and clean-tech manufacturing.
Critics now believe that if elected Vice President, Vance will push for a boost in oil and gas production at the expense of emission-free energy. Ohio ranks seventh among states in the US for natural gas production. Vance has called for expanding production at the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which are significant output areas.
By 2022, his views had changed. In an interview in July that year on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, he said there was no climate crisis, dissing the "ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that do not produce enough energy to run a cell phone."
“The whole EV thing is a scam,” Vance said in the July 2022 radio interview, days before passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. “If you plug it into your wall, do these people think there are Keebler elves back there making energy in the wall? It comes, of course, from fossil fuels.”
He also took potshots on Twitter (Now X), saying democrats were pushing a "green energy fantasy" in the US, while China is building coal-fired power plants.
"All of this “bring American manufacturing back” from the Democrats is fake unless we stop the green energy fantasy. Solar panels can’t power a modern manufacturing economy. That’s why the Chinese are building coal power plants, something Tim Ryan’s donors won’t let America do," he wrote back then.
While Vance turned from a climate change believer to a critic, his home state of Ohio bettered 45 other states of the country in installation of solar generating capacity, according to data from the Solar Industries Association. The state deployed 1.3 GW of solar power in 2023, a 1,230% increase over 2022 and another 20 utility-scale projects are already in the works.
Electric Vehicles and battery manufacturing plants are helping Ohio offset jobs lost in production of conventional gas-burning cars. The Workhorse Group Inc., along with battery manufacturer Ultium Cells LLC, who supplies to General Motors, employs around 1,700 workers at its Ohio facility.
But Vance's U-turn is no surprise, considering the oil and gas industry has helped fund his political career. He has received more than $3,52,000 in contributions from the oil & gas industry since 2019, as per campaign finance data compiled by the nonprofit group OpenSecrets. Privately held oil trading company Vitol Inc., refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp., and oil producer Artex Oil Co. feature among his top 20 contributors.
“This choice signals that a potential Trump-Vance administration would likely double down on fossil fuel expansion at a time when we desperately need to transition to clean energy,” said Cassidy DiPaola, a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign at the advocacy group Fossil Free Media.
(With Inputs From Agencies.)
Critics now believe that if elected Vice President, Vance will push for a boost in oil and gas production at the expense of emission-free energy. Ohio ranks seventh among states in the US for natural gas production. Vance has called for expanding production at the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which are significant output areas.
However, Vance has done a U-turn when it comes to his views on climate change. He acknowledged the phenomena of global warming in 2020 saying "we have a climate problem in our society", blaming the emissions in China for the same, while simultaneously lamenting the slow adoption of carbon-free power in the US. While he said back then that solar energy is driving big improvements, it can't meet all of the US' energy needs.
By 2022, his views had changed. In an interview in July that year on the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton show, he said there was no climate crisis, dissing the "ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that do not produce enough energy to run a cell phone."
“The whole EV thing is a scam,” Vance said in the July 2022 radio interview, days before passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. “If you plug it into your wall, do these people think there are Keebler elves back there making energy in the wall? It comes, of course, from fossil fuels.”
He also took potshots on Twitter (Now X), saying democrats were pushing a "green energy fantasy" in the US, while China is building coal-fired power plants.
"All of this “bring American manufacturing back” from the Democrats is fake unless we stop the green energy fantasy. Solar panels can’t power a modern manufacturing economy. That’s why the Chinese are building coal power plants, something Tim Ryan’s donors won’t let America do," he wrote back then.
While Vance turned from a climate change believer to a critic, his home state of Ohio bettered 45 other states of the country in installation of solar generating capacity, according to data from the Solar Industries Association. The state deployed 1.3 GW of solar power in 2023, a 1,230% increase over 2022 and another 20 utility-scale projects are already in the works.
Electric Vehicles and battery manufacturing plants are helping Ohio offset jobs lost in production of conventional gas-burning cars. The Workhorse Group Inc., along with battery manufacturer Ultium Cells LLC, who supplies to General Motors, employs around 1,700 workers at its Ohio facility.
But Vance's U-turn is no surprise, considering the oil and gas industry has helped fund his political career. He has received more than $3,52,000 in contributions from the oil & gas industry since 2019, as per campaign finance data compiled by the nonprofit group OpenSecrets. Privately held oil trading company Vitol Inc., refiner Marathon Petroleum Corp., and oil producer Artex Oil Co. feature among his top 20 contributors.
“This choice signals that a potential Trump-Vance administration would likely double down on fossil fuel expansion at a time when we desperately need to transition to clean energy,” said Cassidy DiPaola, a spokesperson for the Make Polluters Pay campaign at the advocacy group Fossil Free Media.
(With Inputs From Agencies.)
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