Over shouts from environmental activists, an Ohio commission gives the go-ahead for several bidders to frack under thousands of acres of public lands.
These areas include state parks, wildlife areas and a prison in leasing deals that bring millions into the state’s coffers.
Plus, a new law will speed up the state’s oil and gas permitting process among other changes.
Sen. Bernie Moreno wants to do what the Supreme Court didn’t: restrict automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S.
We check in on the governor’s race.
And how did Ohio observe America's 250th birthday?
Guests:
- Sarah Donaldson, reporter, Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau
- Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter, Cleveland.com
- Shane Stegmiller, reporter, Hannah News Service
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to the All Sides Reporter Roundtable. An hour where we catch up on the political news of last week and preview the week ahead. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Joining me on the Roundtable this week, we have Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Welcome back, Sarah. Hello, happy Monday. And Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter for cleveland.com. Welcome back Jeremy. Good morning. And Shane Stegmiller, reporter for Hannah News Service. Welcome back Shane. Good morning, hope everyone has their digits after this 4th of July weekend.
Oh man, yeah. Okay, so rather than starting with the 4th of July, we're going to start with fracking. So let's start with a boisterous meeting that happened last week. It was an Oil and Gas Land Management Commission meeting. And to set the scene, here is some chanting that happened at meeting. So that hands off our land, that is audio from you, Sarah. These meetings have grown quite contentious, environmental activists chanting and yelling at the commissioners. Your story called it, called some of it heckling. So can you tell me more about the, that seems like a lot for a commission meeting.
Sarah Donaldson: Not the first time that this has happened. So this has been going on for a couple years now. Basically, Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill into law that cleared the way for the state to lease the mineral rights under Ohio's public lands and state parks. And that was in 2022 or early 2023. So there's a group called Save Ohio Parks, and they are opposed to fracking under state parks, So pretty much quarterly, this.
Oil and Gas Land Management Commission meets, they make decisions about what land is going to be opened up to nominations, and then they make decision on the bids to actually frack under the land because basically private companies, different private companies bid on the land and then the state has to pick the highest and best bid.
So that was one of these meetings. And it was my first time actually going to a meeting, but I'm told that the folks Save Ohio Parks go to every meeting and they are, you know, a pretty boisterous crowd. Protests, they typically have a press conference beforehand, there's songs oftentimes, and then they go into the meeting and they disrupt commissioners at points.
I mean, nobody was arrested, nobody really got out of their seats and got super aggressive, although I will say there was one person who was making some pretty aggressive screams. I don't want to say that they've urged into threats, but they were pretty aggressive. And, um, They basically chant over the commissioner. So it can be hard to hear what the commissioners are actually voting on at point.
Juravich: Cathy Cohen Becker leads the group Save Ohio Parks, and she spoke about the environmental effects of drilling. We also have some audio from your story where she addresses their outcry and their outreach. Let's listen.
Cathy Cohen Becker: Our voices are quite loud and it's quite obvious. The comments, we've had over 10,000 public comments since this began, almost like 99% opposed, and it hasn't made a dent.
Juravich: So I guess maybe some of the yelling is because they're frustrated if they have that many comments but the commission keeps approving the drilling. Is that what's happening?
Donaldson: Yeah, and I will say, to be very clear, this commission has been given its orders essentially by the state, and, I mean, they're part of the state of course, they are an agency of the State, but when state lawmakers passed this law, it basically put the onus on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and also the Ohio Department of Transportation because there is some land, it's not just land under state parks, it is also land under right of ways, rights of way, you know, plurals.
But, you know, this state law change means that these groups kind of have to open up this land in some ways. So when I was talking to Cowan Becker, I asked her, you guys have been protesting at these meetings and, you know, obviously to no avail. And I will say it's not like it's hundreds and hundreds of people. This group is a couple dozen, but they are certainly committed and they're there.
And generally public opinion of... Fracking under state parks, they say, is not good. People are not saying, we love this idea. But Republicans who supported this law change say that they did it because, A, it, you know, gives the state more avenues to collect more revenue. It's opening up another avenue for revenue. And also because they say that the state wants to be one that is open to all types of energy to all.
Bolstering all types of energy. So, you know, Cowenbecker told me she doesn't see a real change happening until an administration change. Governor DeWine has obviously been at least silently supportive of this because he signed the law. He hasn't spoken out against it in any way, shape or form. He's not taken a meeting with this group.
Cowen Becker says they've been talking with candidates, but I will say Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican gubernatorial candidate Quote tweeted an article about this meeting and you know, basically put a stamp of approval on it So if Ramaswami wins, I imagine it's gonna be a continuation of what's currently happening
Juravich: And Jeremy or Shane, we can bring you in here to talk about the money. I mean, this brings money into state coffers. Can you talk about, you know, why the state over the years has wanted more oil and gas drilling?
Jeremy Pelzer: Well, for one thing, state lawmakers are always looking for more ways to bring in money, especially when it aligns with something that they ideologically agree with. And one of the things that Republican lawmakers agree with is increasing energy production in Ohio. And so to them, this is a win-win. You get more energy production by drilling.
And the state gets royalties from this money or something like 12.5% as a baseline. And that's money that can be used, then, to help ODNR, the Department of Natural Resources. And to the point, I think, we're at least in the last budget slipping back on how much money is given to ODNL from the state's normal revenue fund just for operations. And so I think that's what. The trend is, at least.
Juravich: Shane, do you have, do know more about the ODNR money?
Shane Stegmiller: They've been sinking a lot of those some of the royalties they've been getting they've been sinking back into the parks themselves where the drilling is going on at Salt Fork has already had some activity going on and they've already started taking some of that royalty money and turning around and sinking it back into making improvements.
It helps out ODNR because like many state agencies they've got a lot a deferred maintenance so this kind of helps instead of having to go you know hat and hand to the General Assembly, every budgetarian, say, give us some money so we can, you know, fix up our restrooms and make these improvements. Now they have this pot of money that they can draw from.
Donaldson: I want to put a finer point on that, though, because I believe Jeremy started to talk about it. There are these royalties coming in, but last year when lawmakers were preparing the budget, they actually cut ODNR's parks and recreation budget by 50% in 2026, and then they used the royalty money to backfill that general revenue fund cut. It's
Juravich: So it's not necessarily extra money.
Donaldson: It's not in some ways. It's extra money and for fiscal year 2027. It was only a 13% cut But you know there were conservationists who told me they were really really concerned by that because once you get general revenue fund money cut by a Legislature it's hard to go back and say I need this increase because it looks like an increase even if it isn't so I know that's a little confusing but basically ODNR didn't get its budget cut, it still got the same amount of money, but where that money was coming from was not just general revenue fund taxpayer dollars. And there are again conservationists who are concerned about this because these parks were established in the same way the national parks were for conservation efforts. And so, you know, there's a lot of land in Ohio and they say, why are we drilling under like the one or two percent of land that is protected in Ohio or supposed to be protected.
Juravich: Well, I do know that Salt Fork State Park has been getting renovations because I happen to have been there over the weekend. So they have a brand new eco discovery center that they opened. And then the the beach area of the park is getting a major renovation. I'm long overdue major renovation, so I guess but that is happening because of the backfill of the budget cut with the fracking money. Is that right?
Donaldson: Yeah. And again, they are. I mean, the state is it's it's complicated, but this was this these royalties were kind of tied up and lawmakers had to release them and they ended up backfilling some of them. But you're right that the parks that are accepting the drilling and I think it's only one state park right now that is being drilled under there. The rest of them are wildlife areas, but
Juravich: Yeah, the Egypt Valley Wildlife Area, which is in that same area, Belmont and Harrison County, and then the Jockey Hollow Wildlife Area which is in Athens.
Donaldson: Yes. It's all rural, more rural, southeast Ohio areas. And, you know, on the flip side, there's this benefit because these parks are potentially seeing upgrades. But at the same time, going back to what these environmentalists are saying, they're worried about the environmental impacts. You're going to a park, you're spending time outside, and now suddenly you can hear drilling or there's pollution in the air that impacts the animals that you might be able to see at the park. So. It's kind of a give and take, I guess, but clearly the state has seen the benefit and weighed the benefit over the cost.
Juravich: Yeah, the drilling is... I didn't see it. I couldn't see. It's adjacent. It's adjacent.
Pelzer: It's not, you won't see any fracking activity on the surface on state land. It's a adjacent and they go under the state land too.
Juravich: They go horizontal.
Pelzer: Yeah, a horizontal drill.
Donaldson: It's why it's not the land rights, it's the mineral rights. Under the land. It's under the land!
You're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. This is our Weekly Reporter Roundtable. We're talking about fracking and a state commission that awards bids to frack under public lands. And we're talking with Sarah Donaldson from the Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau, Jeremy Pelzer from Cleveland.com, and Shane Stegmiller with Hanna News Service. Do we know if this commission has ever turned down any bidders? Like, what do we know about the companies winning these bids? Does everyone who bids wins?
Donaldson: Well, no, I'm sorry. And I didn't mean to cut you off, Shane. But there are a lot of these bids. There were multiple bids on the land. So it goes to the best and highest bidder. And, you know, even at this meeting last week, there were some nominations turned down. I wasn't entirely clear why I asked ODNR. And I think potentially it was because there was some confusion about overlap with what land had already been bid out at Egypt Valley. Because at this point, most of Salt Fork State Park, the mineral rights have been leased out. The nominations are when the state votes to actually open up the land, and then the bids are when they pick the company. But there are, in a lot of cases, multiple companies bidding on these different projects.
Stegmiller: The thing I was going to add to is I think there's also been some nominations that have been rejected or they haven't opened up because of possible like right of ways involving high federal highways and that the Ohio Department of Transportation has previously told this panel that it's barred from approving energy development along federal interstates without getting approval of the federal highway administration so that some of these other areas might not have gotten at at least opened up for nominations because of that issue. However, too.
Pelzer: Your question, Amy, it seems that the policy is designed more about to be in presumption of issuing these permits. And if there's technical reasons not to do so, as Shane and Sarah have laid out, then okay, well, they'll shoot it down. But it's not like on ideological grounds, they will say, oh, well this state park is too beautiful and we're not going to allow it to be fracked under. That's not really what they're doing
Donaldson: And I don't know that they could, right? I mean, the state law is the state law, these commissioners are kind of just the rubber stamp on the process to actually open up the land.
Pelzer: Because the background of this is that the state actually voted more than a decade ago to open this up. But John Kasich, the governor at the time, and Mike DeWine, at least during the first couple of years of his time as governor, didn't do anything about it. And so a few years ago, lawmakers voted to say, well, we're going to force you to do it by passing a law saying that any nomination will be automatically accepted unless. The administration gets going on this so now the administration is getting going on This and it's not automatically accepted now as again Shane and Sarah said but it's there's a presumption that That they will be accepted if it's a reasonable bid
Juravich: And I also was reading about the abandoned oil and gas wells around the state. There's an oil and gasoline fund that's used to plug abandoned wells. And lawmakers have dipped into this fund in the past, but there's a new law seeking to protect the fund. But is this a problem? Do we have like, once you get all the minerals out, then we end up having like an abandoned well?
Pelzer: We do, it's a huge problem. There's tens of thousands of these wells around the state, some of them have been abandoned for decades. And it leaches chemicals and, you know, petrochemicals into the nearby water and the air, methane, it a problem just because it creates sinkholes sometimes, so there's physical issues with it. And it's costly to... Deal with these and fill the cap of these abandoned wells.
Juravich: So the companies come in and do the drilling, but they don't have to cap it off when they're done?
Pelzer: Well, I mean.
Juravich: Or maybe they don't do it right
Pelzer: I think there's a variety of reasons that they're not dealt with, but the upshot is that they are not dealt. Sometimes companies get sold or the land changes hands, and the up shot is that there's this remediation fund, as you were saying, and in the past they've dipped into it to pay for a variety, things like the most recent time that they did it to help pay for this All Ohio Future Fund, which is an economic development fund. So Senate Bill 219, which Governor just signed a few days ago, actually prohibits that dipping into it. But 219 is actually a much broader bill. That's only one of the parts of this bill. It also has a number of other provisions designed to speed up applications of drilling and more specifically, drilling under state parks and wildlife areas.
Juravich: Okay, so this bill that was signed into law is wide ranging. So it speeds up the permitting process to allow for more fracking more quickly, but then it also does things about plugging up the, you know, like any bill that goes through the legislature, there's a lot of pieces and parts to it. The law goes into effect in mid-September, but it seems like it puts a lot more on state regulators. Do state regulators have to pay more attention with this bill or is it is it just that they're speeding everything up and Is there more regulation or less regulation with this bill?
Pelzer: Most of it is designed to speed it up.
Juravich: Okay, so I guess that would be less regulation if we're speeding it up.
Pelzer: Like, for example, it requires ODNR and other state agencies to finalize approved oil and gas leases within 60 days. It cuts times for state regulators to review oil and gas leasers or proposals, pardon me, and it requires regulators to either issue or deny a drilling permit. It allows a more expedited permit request, so an agency can't refuse a request for an expedited permit. They have to either say yes or no based on the merits, but they can't say, we're too busy right now, so we're not going to, we don't have the time to expedite your request. They can't do that anymore.
Juravich: So Sarah, it sounds like the Save Our Parks committee that we talked about at the beginning is going to have more work to do here, if there's going to be faster permitting.
Donaldson: Yeah, I'm sure Save Ohio Parks will continue to watch this very closely and be outspoken against it. They have been following this very close since that law was signed by Governor DeWine.
Juravich: Well, coming up, we are going to talk about Ohio's election. We will have a new governor elected in about four months, so we're going to check in on the campaign some of the emerging issues and more that is when the reporter roundtable from all sides continues on 89 7 NPR news.
Speaker 6: Each story you hear on Planet Money starts with a question. What happens if we refund tariffs? Why are groceries so expensive? At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious because the forces shaping our world can be hard to see. Follow NPR's Planet Money wherever you get your podcasts and start seeing how the economy really works.
You're listening to All Sides in the Weekly Reporter Roundtable, an hour where we talk about all things Ohio politics. I'm your host Amy Juravich. Still with us, Shane Stegmiller, reporter for Hanna News Service, Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter for Cleveland.com, and Sarah Donaldson, reporter of the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau.
We are four months away from the November election, and the governor's race between Republican nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and Democrat Amy Acton is getting national attention. For Ohio voters, it will be an historic pick. The first non-white male, if Ramaswami wins.
The first woman elected, if Acton wins. The first, non-Christian either way. Ramasawamy is Hindu and Acton is Jewish. Jeremy, can you give us a sense of how they're campaigning at this stage of the game? Is it shaping up like traditional campaigns of the past or are things more intense? Nor, it used to be a long time ago that summer was slow and I feel like it's not slow.
Pelzer: Knock on wood, because we'll see if this continues, but right now it's a little slower. Not to say they're not doing anything. You know, Ramaswamy and Acton are both campaigning around. They were both in 4th of July parades, for example, over the weekend. I think there's two, when you have any statewide campaign like this, there's kind of, it's like a seesaw.
The first half, you're raising money and trying to get endorsements and doing all this behind the scenes stuff. And then at some point, it just shifts over to the other side. And then the other slide goes down, and then they start spending the money. And really going around the state, I think we're on the cusp of that happening.
Ramaswamy has been airing ads, but it's mainly because he has so much money that he has the ability to air ads this early. I think sometime next month is when we'll see the campaign really start, that seesaw really shift over and we'll that barrage of ads and we won't be able to go anywhere in Ohio without seeing at least one of these two.
Stegmiller: We actually are getting the barrage of ads, though, because Ramaswamy is spending a lot of money in his super PAC, the VPAC, Victor's, not victims, they've been spending millions of dollars. I think some of the other groups are starting to get involved. You're going to definitely see it starting in September. The Democratic Governors Association has already, at least, 10 million I think.
They've got millions of dollars of ad time starting in September that they're going to be running right through election day so you'll start seeing all theirs. Not to mention the Acton campaign. And the Actin campaign. Right now it's state fair season. So they're hitting all the state fairs right now.
Ramaswami is using that to kind of as an attack against Actin as her time as health director kind of saying, you know, a few years ago during COVID she shut down all state fairs and that. So you're seeing them hit, you know, the parade circuit, the state fair circuit. You're gonna start seeing them more and more on the air, more public facing events too.
Juravich: Jeremy, talk to me about whether these ads need to be attack ads, or are the candidates trying to still introduce themselves to Ohio, because neither of them have run for office before.
Pelzer: Well, as Shane said, so far it's mostly one-sided. It's mostly Ramaswamy and pro-Ramaswamy allies doing the ad buying right now. But so far, there's some introducing the candidate ads, but a large chunk of them are attack ads. And that reflects how this is a competitive race, or at least Ramasvamy and his allies see it as a competitive raise that they're going after Acton.
This is a different, kind of campaign than Ohio normally has because neither of these two have held elected office before. And so a lot of it is, you know, they say in politics, you wanna define your opponent before they can define themselves. And so that is what a lot of this is, is trying to, people know who Amy Acton is, excuse me, from her time as state health director, and people know who Vivek Ramaswamy is from his time running for president in 2024. But in terms of what they would do as governor. That's what they're really trying to do is define, hey, as governor, this, my opponent would do this. Oh no.
Juravich: Yeah, and Sarah, I've heard like on this show before and then also at politics in a pint or event recently You've said that you take polls at this point with a grain of salt Um, but the polling is showing them like in a dead heat if not act and winning by like one percentage point Or something like that. Yeah
Donaldson: Yeah, I definitely I feel like I give this caveat all the time I take polls always with a grain of salt, even if it's days before the election because there's simply a Snapshot in time. I think they've under captured Trump voters and Republican voters in Ohio, especially in recent election cycles You've seen you know in the primary for example Matt Dolan point polling like right in line with Bernie Moreno and then Bernie Morena went on to crush Matt Dolin in primary.
So, they're a snapshot in time. I always remind people of that, but I think Ramaswamy's actions show, A, like Jeremy said, that he has a lot of money, but B, that his campaign is at least taking the race seriously. I think if they thought it was going to be no contest at all, I don't know that we'd be seeing ads run during Cincinnati Reds games on a Saturday. That's not cheap ad space, to my understanding. So I think those actions show that the polls are probably at least an accurate-ish snapshot in time of how people are feeling right now.
Pelzer: And especially attack ads, too, because normally, if you're really ahead in the race, traditional political wisdom is, you don't mention your opponent at all. Like, don't give them any free publicity, positive or negative, but the fact that Ramaswami and his allies are going after Acton and bringing her up frequently shows that they consider us to be, you know, a competitive race, as Sarah said.
Stegmiller: And again, taking what Sarah said and take those polls with the caveat of they're just snapshot in time, but the good news for Acton is despite over a month, maybe two months of attack ads against her, she's still polling about even with Ramaswami at this point. So that's got to be good news her campaign, especially in a state that seems to be going more red in the last few election cycles.
Donaldson: And I think the question too is I think it's the question that's on every reporter's mind and everyone who's watching this race closely's mind is how much does COVID really matter here? I mean, I think that, you know, there's been so much focus from Rama Swamy's campaign right now. And of course, that's why Ohioans know Amy Acton.
If they know Amy act in, there has been so many focus on that COVID piece and less on the, like, she's a, the, the other attack lines that- Republicans around the country are taking which she's the Democratic socialist I mean there's been some of that too But I just I think that focus that Shane mentioned about like all these county fairs and act and shut down your county fair I wonder how much it plays with voters
Stegmiller: And that's been an interesting part of me as an observer of this whole campaign is how much is COVID gonna play into it? Because that's a time in our lives when a lot of people would like to forget about it. So-
Juravich: Maybe quit bringing it up.
Stegmiller: Yeah, so is it going to be, you know, by attacking Acton and her time as health director, are you going to then associate all those negative feelings you have about COVID with her? Or are you, like Sarah said, just, I just want to move on with my life.
Juravich: Well, and Governor DeWine has even said, associate it with him, not her, because the buck stopped with him. He, he, yeah.
Donaldson: Yeah, I mean he hasn't directly come out and said Amy Acton's the best and of course we should know Governor DeWine did endorse Vivek Ramaswamy.
Juravich: But he signed the shutdown orders, yeah.
Donaldson: He's been very clear about that, that it was not just an Amy Acton. I mean, there's so many interesting factors when you go to this race and how it connects to COVID, because then you look at the Senate race and John Husted was lieutenant governor at that point. And he's painted it as well. Governor DeWine was kind of in the middle and Amy Acton was, you know, pushing for the shutdowns and I was pushing to open things up. So it's funny that this these races in Ohio are truly like a throwback to 2020, I guess.
Juravich: Well, as I mentioned, this race is getting some national attention. Both candidates are giving interviews to national outlets, and I wanted to play some recent audio clips from each of them, and then we can discuss after we listen. So this is Ramaswamy on Fox News a couple of weeks ago. He was asked to comment about Elon Musk, his former Doge partner in the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon Musk achieved trillionaire status, and here's what Ramasawmy said.
Vivek Ramaswamy: So you think about the greatness of America, it's capitalism, it's the rule of law, it's that fact that we're a magnet for the best around the world, that is what got us here. And certainly you have the left-wing socialists, they're becoming more and more popular, they're winning primary elections, you're seeing it even this season. Well, I have no hope for the Democrat party, they're going nowhere. But what I wanna see is a Republican party that once again embraces this idea of celebrating success rather than villainizing it.
Juravich: So Jeremy, what stands out to you about that audio? You know, Elon Musk became a trillionaire. We should celebrate success and not villainize it.
Pelzer: That's become a more commonly used line by Ramaswamy as Amy Acton's campaign has gone after him. For having money. For being a billionaire. For being, for, they're claiming he's an out of touch billionaire. They're pointing to his use of a private jet to campaign around the state and take these trips, you know, out of the country. And so his response to that is, you know, while they're villainizing success that, you all of that. People like me can become wealthy, and that's part of the American dream, and by going after it, you're villainizing success. So that's fitness hand in glove with what he's been saying in general in response to Amiak.
Juravich: Before I play Amy Acton, Shane or Sarah, do you want to weigh in on what Momoswami just said? All right, so next I want to play a cut from Acton. She was on MSN Now, so each candidate appeared on Friendly Media Outlets. This interview was a part of a segment on how Ohio is one of the states to watch with these races. Let's listen.
Amy Acton: And everywhere we go, we see record crowds of people showing up. It doesn't know party. And people are feeling the effects of these policies. They're working harder than they ever have. And the cost thing, it's just all not adding up. And they're exhausted of the hate and the chaos and the vitriol and being pitted against one another. I can tell you, without a doubt, Ohioans are ready for a change.
Juravich: And Sarah, what stands out for you in that messaging there, the change message? Is that going to resonate for voters?
Donaldson: I mean, I think it's a little too early to tell, but we'll have to see because I think both candidates have been giving these looser quotes about change and this is where the direction that Ohio needs to go in, but I think its been pointed out before that neither of them have these bulleted platforms of what comes next.
Juravich: And yeah, Shane or Jeremy, do you want to weigh in on this idea of Acton saying that Ohioans are exhausted by hate and chaos? When I think Dwyane, I'm not thinking hate and chaos, but anyway.
Stegmiller: I think it's also active trying to be in the middle on this, you know, she said she's wants to you know she points out a lot that she worked for a Republican administration and I've worked with both sides and she's also said she wants to you point Republicans to her cabinet so I think this is her trying to come off as a centrist you know one of the things that we see a lot of these days in campaigns is you really want to paint the other side is just very extreme and and I'm the person who's going to kind keep things low key in the middle.
Juravich: Is she trying loosely to tie Ramaswamy to Trump without saying, because, right, Jeremy?
Pelzer: That that's part of it. I'm smiling when I listen to that because it kind of she did a good job of kind of hitting multiple different campaign angles that she's been trying to push. One of them is that she is the affordability candidate that I'll lower your cost of living. Another is that I'm a moderate and I will appoint a Republican to my cabinet and That's reflects a need among.
Amy Acton to win over Republicans in a state where Republicans have controlled all three branches of state government for more than a decade, she's going to need Republicans to vote for her or at least stay home and not vote for Ramaswami. So it clicks that. And it's just a political truism that the change candidate wins elections.
And so both Amy Acten and Ramasvami have been campaigning as the quote unquote change candidates. It's a little bit more hard to square that circle for Ramaswami, given that Republicans have already controlled state government and he's a Republican, but he's tried to make that clear on issues like Medicaid fraud and separating himself from Governor DeWine and other Republicans to present himself as the change candidate.
Donaldson: And I thought it was interesting, these federal Supreme Court rulings came down last week on a bunch of different issues, but one of the issues was on transgender girls playing in girl sports. And Amy Acton said boys shouldn't be able to play in girl sports on Twitter, which is not something that I would have you know, placed on a Democrat a couple of years ago, you know.
Democrats in the state legislature voted against the ban on transgender kids playing in girls sports. So, you know, Acton certainly caught a lot. I've seen some flack from some of the left factions on that. So you know it's certainly that they both have to and she has the harder lift like Jeremy said, appealing to appealing to the centrist Republicans who maybe don't to vote for Rameswami or on the flip side. That hope that maybe some of these folks on the far right who have.
Juravich: Have qualms about voting for Rameswami just don't show up. Well, Democrats have been criticized for focusing on niche issues, like trans rights as an example, instead of focusing on what matters to more Ohioans, like a more, a bigger population with economic issues and affordability instead of honing in on, you know, something like that. So does anyone have an assessment of, like, Democratic leadership in the state messaging focus from the Ohio Democratic Party?
Stegmiller: Yeah, I can talk about that. Just to go back to what Sarah talked about, if you recall, the transgender issue came up in the Senate race in 2024. They really started attacking Sherrod Brown to the point where he had to put out an ad that says, no, this is not the way I view things. So the thought is that Amy Acton came out with that statement to try and get ahead of that because that will probably come up again.
Democrats are trying to go, we're the affordability party. This is the biggest concern on a lot of people's minds. This is everybody's struggling these days. I've heard Kathleen Clyde, the Ohio Democratic Party Chair, every time she's given a speech, she talks affordability, affordability affordability. Amy Acton's talking about affordability affordability affordable. You see that coming from the national Democrats. That's where they wanna keep bringing it back to because they believe that's their winning message.
Juravich: Before we take the break, just quickly, Jeremy, Cleveland.com is doing a series of stories on key issues in the governor's race. Your most recent piece was related to transportation funding and highway projects. I mean, do you feel like Ramaswami and Acton have strong proposed remedies for things like this?
Pelzer: Don't. So when I ask, opposed to both campaigns, so to back up, yeah, Ohio and Governor Mike DeWine's administration specifically has been looking at, there's a disturbing trend for transportation funding, because there's more fuel efficient vehicles on the road, more electric hybrid vehicles. And so gas tax revenue, even though it was in 2019 has plateaued.
And it hasn't raised as much money as they expected it to. At the same time, thanks to inflation, not just general inflation, but specifically construction cost inflation within the industry, especially, but the bipartisan infrastructure law, there's a big demand now for raw materials, labor, et cetera. So they're warning that by like 2040, 2050, there's gonna be a real problem with raising enough money just with gas tax, which pays for about 40% of highway projects.
To fill that hole. So, DeWine's administration, they've been looking at things like setting up toll booths around interstate highways around the state or non-interstate highways too. They've been look at raising the gas tax or charging a mileage fee. So, every mile you drive in Ohio, you would have to pay a tax on that. They're just looking at that.
This is early stages, but then asking Ramaswamy and Acton about that. Ramaswami's campaign answered basically that he would cut administrative waste and government bloat. Well, what does that mean? We don't know. And Thank you. Acton's campaign was more forthright. She said, according to the campaign, that she would not favor tolling. She would not pay the favor raising the gas tax. But beyond that, she would work with public and private partners to look at finding ways to address this. So she was a bit more forthcoming. But as far as exactly what either campaign would do, remains to be seen.
Juravich: Mm. She's going to give naming rights to the highways, right? And they're going to have that's a way to get some private money on a highway.
Pelzer: We can auction them off for Atkinson.
You're listening to all sides. And this is our Weekly Reporter Roundtable. We're talking with Jeremy Pelzer from cleveland.com, Shane Stegmiller with Hanna News Service, and Sarah Donaldson with the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. When it comes to SNAP benefits or food stamp assistance, federal law now penalizes states with an error rate above 6% by requiring them for the first time to pay a portion of the benefits. And Shane, your colleague Noah Blundo, wrote about this. Ohio's rate is above that threshold, but officials have been working to bring it down. What steps have Ohio officials taken to lower the error rate? They're trying to get below that 6%.
Stegmiller: They're doing more thorough reviews to try and see if there's places that need to be fixed. This goes back to the one big beautiful bill, one big, beautiful act, or also House Resolution 1. So that required states in either federal fiscal year 25 or federal fiscal year 26 to get their payment error rate down below 6%. If they don't do so, they're going to have to pay more, because under the the SNAP program, the federal government picks up a large chunk of that.
Well, if you're a lot of that money is going out the door due to payment errors, either somebody overcharging you or just people getting benefits that probably should not have gotten benefits in that case, then that's going to, you know, that's less money that's supposed to be going into it. So states with an error rate of above 6% will be required to pick up 5% of the benefit costs. Under Ohio's Ohio has that was about 161 million dollars last year.
States above 10% would have to pay 10% of the benefit costs and then those above 10 percent would have pay 15%. The USDA just put out the latest numbers. Ohio's right now about 6.76% so it's getting closer to that but they're not quite below that. You know, that's better than it was in fiscal year 25, or I'm sorry, I think it was 24. They were about 9% in Ohio. In 23, it was about 7.1% in 22. So they weren't calculated earlier in the decade because of COVID.
So every state's going through this process. And the other thing that a lot of states are doing and some of the, you know. Associations that represent lawmakers and governors. They're actually trying to push Congress to to kind of Pass something to kind to delay this a little bit saying we're addressing this problem but can you give us a little more wiggle room because This fall is when the next federal fiscal year ends and this is when they need to get to below six percent Or else they're gonna have to start paying
Juravich: Okay, so it sounds like Ohio's close though, 6.7%, so they're getting there, they're doing some work on it. They're getting here, but it's, I mean, it's...
Stegmiller: It's gradual and there's a question, can you ever truly get below that number? Yeah.
Donaldson: And I'll be curious to see snap benefits in Ohio are administered at the county level, not at the state level. And Ohio is in the minority there. A lot of other states do statewide benefit agencies. So I know that some lawmakers have floated maybe looking at taking that administration away from the counties, because they say, well, the state's on the hook for the money. So maybe we need to be the ones administering it. So they can.
Juravich: So the counties are making the errors and the state collects all the information or something?
Donaldson: I mean, again, it's a little more complicated than that, obviously, the counties are administering it on behalf of the state, but on behalf the federal government, but I know lawmakers have floated a potential overhaul of how these benefits are actually administered.
Juravich: Well, and one thing to add is, it's not related to error so much as fraud, but we're finally going to move from the swipe cards to the chip cards. And I had Matt Damschroeder from the Department of Job and Family Services on saying that a big part of the fraud rates is because swipe cards are so easily hacked. So I guess we're, we're Finally moving to the Chip cards. So maybe that'll even help with the error rate a little bit. I don't know.
Donaldson: No, you don't know I honestly I'm not sure Jeremy's nodding
Pelzer: Sure. I think that's... It can't hurt. I think, that's been something that's pushed for a while. It's not directly tied to the funding issue, but it's also going to affect the funding issue. I think it's just a general security measure.
Juravich: Yeah, it's expensive, though, to change all the cards from...
Pelzer: Sure, but then if you're looking to get it down below 6%, that's seen as something that would help them.
You're listening to all sides. And this is our Weekly Reporter Roundtable. We're talking with Jeremy Pelzer from cleveland.com, Shane Stegmiller with Hanna News Service, and Sarah Donaldson with the Ohio Public Radio Statehouse News Bureau. Sarah, I wanted to circle back to a topic that we discussed last week, but it was complicated thing and the reporters were not very up-to-date on the topic, it was submetering. Oh God. I know, can you? So I was wondering, because you did write the story about submeting and the governor vetoed a bill related to it. So are you able to explain submetering to me and why the governor vetoed it?
Donaldson: I'm gonna try my best and my wonderful State House reporter colleagues can, you know, hit me if I'm doing it wrong.
Juravich: Well, we struggled last week, so maybe, yeah.
Donaldson: So basically, you know, submetering is this idea that maybe it's a landlord, some sort of third party, a middleman, is coming and buying electric or another utility at wholesale cost and then they're reselling it. It's very common in apartment complexes, condoms, and I should, condominiums, let's try that again, condos, my apologies, listeners. Um It's very common in multi-tenant housing.
So often landlords or some other building manager are maybe buying it and reselling it, calculating based on tenant usage. But the problem has been how to regulate it because the PUCO, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has said before that they don't necessarily see submetering as a utility.
Utility companies like AEP of Ohio are regulated like public utilities. Because they're regulated, they have to abide by certain standards. They can't just disconnect people if they're not paying their bills. They have to go through a certain level of... There are protections for consumers of utilities from getting disconnected.
There are payment plans if they can't necessarily afford that utility, but that doesn't exist for submetering. So for these customers who are sub-metered They are not being afforded the same protections, at least that's the argument that the Ohio Consumers Council and other groups have made.
So it went all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court, I don't know all the up, I think it was not that many steps to get there, but they reversed the PUCO decision and said submetering companies are utilities and they should be regulated as such. So there was this bill that was also passed that would have regulated sub metering companies, but it would not have provided the same level of protections, at least that's what I'm told by the Consumers Council, that the Supreme Court decision affords.
Because now the Supreme Court is basically saying to the PUCO, you need to regulate these companies like you regulate AEP of Ohio. And that bill that was regulating sub metered companies kind of made two different classes. There were less protections afforded. So DeWine vetoed it. Arguing that although he appreciates that lawmakers were also, you know, concerned about this issue and putting forward regulations with that Supreme Court decision, this would have kind of backtracked.
Juravich: Okay, so he's saying Lawmaker's Bill wasn't good enough compared to the Supreme Court decision.
Donaldson: Basically and that's the argument of the Consumers Council who has been pushing really hard on this and I will say there were Democrats who voted against this sub metering regulation bill because there were more than one bill that was trying to regulate some metering And this was the one that was pushed forward and again the argument Of those who voted it was it just didn't go far enough. So I hope I did okay
Juravich: You did a great job! No, I understand it now, and now I understand why you vetoed it. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. But they had to try again, I guess, if the Supreme Court said they need to do something.
Donaldson: Yeah, and I talked to the consumers council and they said really they don't think that lawmakers need to do anything here The PUCO needs to handle it based on the Supreme Court decision But the PUC is the one that is the expert on how to regulate utilities. So it's the opinion of the consumers counsel That's the agency that kind of pushes for consumers rights when it comes to utilities They say really lawmakers don't need to get involved here because that's a pre-court decision does what they wanted it to do
Pelzer: And meanwhile, state lawmakers who favor the Republican co-sponsors of the bill say that it's needed because, well, the PSEO, a future PSEA could reinterpret what this means. And so we need to put some consumer protections in state law for some metering. Oh, I see. And while it doesn't go, as Sarah said, it doesn' go as far enough as it would be under now, thanks to the Ohio Supreme Court decision, they would say, well it would create some consumer protections, and those would be codified and in state law as opposed to just... Being a Supreme Court ruling.
Donaldson: And I will note that some metering companies, I think, were a little more for the bill that DeWine feed out. So we'll just add that note.
Juravich: So take take that for what it's worth. All right. OK, Shane, we are running out of time, but I did talk about this at the like very top of the show. So I wanted to ask you about a U.S. Supreme Court case related to needing a permit to pray in a home. And I believe your colleague Noah Blundo might have written about this, but it's it's a case that involves a Jewish man from Northeast Ohio, Daniel Grand and. He was required by city officials to have a permit, to have prayer group in his home, and it happened in 2022, and now it's all the way before the U.S. Supreme Court. So can you explain this, why there was a permit needed and how it reached the high court?
Stegmiller: So he so this Daniel grand is a Orthodox Jew. And this goes back to 2021. He organized a group to pray at his home because under his Orthodox Judaism, he must pay. He must pray three times a day with at least 10 other men and observers, observance of Shabbos, which lasts from sunset Friday until stars emerge on Saturday night. And those who observe are not allowed to travel by car. Well, the closest synagogue to them. Is quite a ways away and it was going to be hard for him to walk. So he started organizing these prayers and prayer groups in his home. Neighbors started complaining about it. So the city came to him and said, no, you need to get a permit as if you are a synagogue.
Juravich: Ohhh.
Stegmiller: So, he originally started the process to get a permit, but when they were hearing the permit through the city, there was a lot of people who came out in opposition and seeing what was going on, he pulled the permit. But then he turned around and filed a federal lawsuit saying, you're treating what I'm doing in my home different than what you would treat any other kind of gathering in a home, and that's unconstitutional. That goes against my First Amendment rights.
That went through, he filed a federal lawsuit. So the lower courts dismissed the case because they said you pulled the permit before it had a chance to even get heard, approved or denied. So therefore you have no course of action. So now it's gone up to the Supreme Court who's going to just kind of take a look at the whole entire case. I'm assuming they're gonna go. A little further than just whether or not he should have gone through the process of getting a permit. They might look at the whole issue of whether or not a city can require somebody holding a prayer group at home like they're a synagogue.
Juravich: All right, well, that'll be one to watch, but thank you for explaining it. And this has been our Weekly Reporter Roundtable. So thank you, Shane Stegmiller, reporter with Hanna News Service. Thanks for being here, Shane. Thanks.
Stegmiller: Thank you.
Juravich: And Jeremy Pelzer, chief politics reporter for Cleveland.com. Thanks Jeremy. Thanks Amy. And Sarah Donaldson, reporter for the Ohio Public Radio State House News Bureau. Thank you. This has been All Sides on 89.7 NPR News.