Wednesday, April 12, 5-6:30pm, Ohio Environmental Council, 1145 Chesapeake Ave., Suite I [this event will also be occurring via Zoom]

Ohio Energy Law and Policy is a complex web of regulations, laws, and administrative decisions. It is constantly evolving, making it difficult for attorneys and advocates to understand how best to represent their communities or their clients in venues like the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio or the Ohio Power Siting Board — or in other venues, such as city councils or the Ohio General Assembly.

But the reality is, energy law and policy dictate the future of climate action in Ohio.

Through our “Ohio Energy Law and Policy Primer,” the Ohio Environmental Council will outline the recent history of Ohio’s energy world, from deregulation in the early 2000s to the RPS and EE standards of 2009, onward to House Bill 6 and its aftermath in 2019 and 2020 as well as even more recent developments, like Senate Bill 52 passed under the 134th General Assembly.

The Ron DeSantis led Florida Republicans are working faster than the speed of light in trying to dismantle the inner structure that have sustained Florida’s middle-class society in a liberal democracy. The team is working in almost every aspect of our society in doing so. For example:

A- Gutting public sector labor unions with the exception of those that are tied with law enforcement (pretty clever maneuver since Republicans are going to need those workers to crack the heads of other workers); now in DeSantis’ Florida majority in Labor Unions is defined as 60% of the membership. Florida is a right-to-work state, and nobody is forced to become a labor union member.

B- DeSantis has declared a war on education that includes culture wars against Black history, LGBTQ+ community, and whatever makes white people feel uncomfortable about American history, “woke” people issues, etc. African American history has been banned as an AP course.

C- Women's reproductive choice is being hit with an abortion ban after six weeks of pregnancy and is almost certain to become law.

D- Attacks on LGBTQ community meant to take away their right to exist in dignity.

In just a few words -- “those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future” -- George Orwell summed up why narratives about history can be crucial. And so, ever since the final helicopter liftoff from the U.S. Embassy’s roof in Saigon on April 30, 1975, the retrospective meaning of the Vietnam War has been a matter of intense dispute.

 The dominant spin has been dismal and bipartisan. “We went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on other people,” Jimmy Carter declared soon after entering the White House in early 1977. “We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese.” During the next decade, presidents ordered direct American military interventions on a much smaller scale, while the rationales were equally mendacious. Ronald Reagan ordered the 1983 invasion of Grenada, and George H.W. Bush ordered the 1989 invasion of Panama.

WHAT: Oil and Gas Land Management Commission public hearing and business meeting

WHEN: Monday, April 10, at 10 a.m.

WHERE: Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 2045 Morse Road, Building E, 1st Floor Assembly Center, Columbus, OH 43229

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission will hold a hearing on Monday, April 10, to hear public testimony on Draft Rule 155-1-01, which will create the process for granting oil and gas industry leases for fossil fuel extraction from Ohio public lands. 

In attendance will be a group of dedicated Ohio citizens and users of Ohio state parks and forests to call out the oil and gas industry’s grab of our public lands.