The fossil fuel foray
Plus, Ohio Republicans smash the "Somali hysteria" button once again as Donald Trump continues to flounder.
The Thursday dispatch will be the May Mailbag.
Please submit any and all questions through the Jotform.
Political questions are always welcome—especially after last week’s primary—but an eclectic mix featuring non-political questions is what makes the monthly mailbags fun to write (and maybe read, too).
In 2021, Ohio governor Mike DeWine signed legislation that gave county commissioners a “kill switch” to scuttle wind and solar projects early in their development.
As Jake Zuckerman, then of the Ohio Capital Journal, noted at the time: The legislation lacked a similar “kill switch” for fossil fuel projects.
If DeWine and the Republican-gerrymandered State Legislature wanted to strangle renewable energy in Ohio, then they have done just that—and more—within five years.
From Dan Gearino of Inside Climate News on April 26:
Ohio resembles a torture chamber for renewable energy developers, according to new research that examines how regulators in 19 states handle wind and solar project applications.
The Buckeye State had the most projects rejected by state regulators, with seven, and the most withdrawn by developers before a decision, with five, says a paper in the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy.
[…]
Some of the change was tied to a state law passed [in 2021] that gave local governments the ability to ban renewable energy development in certain areas. But the results exceeded what the law required, with extreme deference to local opposition, according to developers.
The “local opposition” might be an understatement, given that much of it isn’t organic.
In Oct. 2024, ProPublica exposed a widespread anti-solar “machine” in Knox County that included astroturf groups controlled by a former methane executive, with some help from a “pink slime” operation masquerading as the former local paper of record:
The campaign against solar power benefited from a confluence of two powerful forces funded by oil and gas interests. A former executive at Ariel Corporation, the county’s largest employer and one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of methane gas compressors, was working behind the scenes. And helping in a more public way is the Mount Vernon News, a newspaper now in the hands of Metric Media, which operates websites that reportedly engage in pay-to-play coverage.
Residents are bombarded with dubious claims: Solar panels are toxic. Their construction depletes the soil and floods fields and depresses home values. China is using them to invade. The campaign has stoked their skepticism and ignited their passions. It intensified the debate in a conservative county that prizes its roots in the gas industry.
I’m not sure what shocked me more: That Ariel Corporation sponsored Mount Vernon University’s stadium with the chemical compound for methane—literally CH4 Stadium—or that the proposed 120W solar farm eventually got built in Knox County after a two-year struggle.
But that story in Knox County, though it ended with a positive outcome, offered a glimpse of the battles to come in the fight for renewable expansion in Ohio.
For example, in Richland County, the northern neighbor of Knox County.
In 2025, Richland County Commissioners passed legislation that banned “large” solar and wind projects within 11 of Richland County’s 18 townships.
Commissioner Darrell Banks appeared to have a poor understanding of Civil Rights history when he quipped that he might suffer a “cross burning” for pushing a ban over assembled opposition at a meeting.
From Dave Anderson of Energy & Policy Institute on May 3:
Richland County Commissioner Darrell Banks emailed a GOP political consultant that he would “not be surprised if there is a cross burning in my future” shortly after voting last summer to ban wind and solar farms at a meeting packed with local residents who opposed the ban.
[…]
“Mission accomplished,” Banks emailed Tom Whatman, a chief strategist for the Republican political advertising firm Majority Strategies, after the Richland County Commissioners approved the ban on July 17, 2025.
“Great work. Thank you!” Whatman responded.
I have a weird belief that county commissioners in Ohio shouldn’t be gleefully emailing partisan consultants based in Jacksonville, Florida, after legislating popular energy policy out of existence.
But such is the nature of the power granted to county commissioners by DeWine and the State Legislature.
Green energy advocates hoped to create a blueprint to circumvent the county commissioners’ unilateral check on renewable expansion by putting the question on the ballot after securing thousands of signatures.
Last Tuesday, Richland County’s hog voters stormed to the polls for the final say on the matter.
Here’s the question they faced, as written on the ballot:
By Resolution adopted on July 17, 2025, the Richland County Board of Commissioners hereby designates all unincorporated areas of the following townships in Richland County, Ohio as a restricted area for construction of “economically significant wind farms” as defined in ORC 4906.13, “large wind farms” and “large solar facilities” as both are defined in ORC 4906.01: Bloominggrove, Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Mifflin, Monroe, Perry, Plymouth, Sharon, Troy, Weller.
Shall the resolution enacting declaring portions of unincorporated areas of Richland County, OH to be restricted areas prohibiting construction of economically significant wind farms, large wind farms and large solar facilities be approved?
How would you vote on the matter, reading the language for the first time? Yes or no?
Because a “yes” vote upheld the ban, while a “no” vote overturned it.
And stop me if you’ve heard this before, but it appears the “confusing” ballot language might have led to the ban on “large” renewable energy products being upheld.
From Kathiann M. Kowalski of Canary Media:
An early analysis of exit poll responses suggests a majority of voters likely meant to vote against Richland County’s ban on most large solar and wind projects for 11 of its 18 townships. But the ballot’s wording perplexed enough of them to have flipped the results.
That preliminary finding doesn’t change the outcome of the May 5 Richland County election. The final tally was 53% “yes” votes to keep the ban versus 47% “no” votes to axe it. But the poll sheds light on how people in the county really felt and can inform future work to roll back clean energy restrictions in Ohio and beyond.
It’s easy to get mad at hog voters in Richland County for not having a firm grasp of a “yes” or “no” pop quiz before heading into the polling booth.
But this was exactly what our State Legislature and Governor DeWine gifted to the fossil fuel energy almost a year to the day after the FBI pinched then-House Speaker Larry Householder for the largest bribery scheme in state history (that we know about).
With their party plummeting in the polls, Ohio Republicans once again smash the “Fake Somali Faud” button
