The Ohio U.S. Senate candidates Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance had their final debate this week. They didn’t agree about much. However, both Ryan and Vance expressed their support for the growth of the natural gas industry.
Dan Gearino is a reporter with InsideClimate News who has been following both politicians' positions on natural gas production in the Senate race.
"When you hear talk from environmental groups, or from energy analysts, about how there is a need over decades to reduce the use of natural gas in order to reduce the release of greenhouse gasses,” Gearino said. “That's an idea that doesn't play very well, doesn't sound very good in Ohio, where there's a significant number of jobs tied to the gas industry."
Ohio is a top 10 natural gas producer in the country.
Natural gas is used at power plants and in homes to run furnaces and stoves. Its production leads to pollution and is a driver of climate change.
"What's interesting about Tim Ryan and J.D. Vance on this question of how much gas we should be producing is that they aren't that far apart in terms of the way that they talk about it, both of them say we should be producing a lot more natural gas."
That's despite some members of Ryan's Democratic Party who have said fossil fuels need to be phased out.
Polls show that the race between Ryan and Vance is extremely close.
Chris Welter is a reporter and corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms.
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