The Republican-dominated Ohio Senate on Wednesday approved legislation that included a last-minute amendment declaring natural gas to be “green.”
The bill was approved by a vote of 22-7, with one Republican joining six Democrats in opposition. It now heads to the Ohio House of Representatives before the legislature concludes its lame duck session by year-end.
The green declaration was one of five amendments that had been added in the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday to Substitute H.B. 507, regulating the state’s poultry industry. The House had unanimously approved H.B. 507 in April.
There had been no discussion in the committee, other than questions and objections from the lone Democrat, before the vote to add the amendments.
Despite the designation of natural gas as green, the language of the amendment specifically blocks shale gas produced in Ohio from qualifying for renewable energy credits (RECs), as feared by renewable energy advocates when the amendments surfaced on Monday.
The Ohio legislature in recent years has made it more difficult for utility-scale solar and wind developers by approving legislation giving county commissioners authority to block the will of the state’s Power Siting Board.
The Senate’s move comes after six rural counties in the state approved resolutions declaring natural gas a source of green energy. That was the work of The Empowerment Alliance (TEA), an anonymously funded 501(c)(4) nonprofit founded in 2019 to promote natural gas and fight the “Green New Deal.” The alliance could not be immediately reached for comment.
Though not identified in committee or on the floor of the Senate, Ohio Sen. Mark Romanchuk (R) was the lawmaker who suggested the green declaration.
“I talked to them [TEA] about this, but I did not get any pressure about it. They were in favor of it,” he said. “It took me some time to get on board with it, but after reading about Europe” declaring natural gas green to help bankroll rapid development “and knowing just how important gas is to Ohio’s economy, I did some research and found that we reduced our emissions by 50% in 15 years,” referring to gas replacing coal for electricity generation.
“I thought about it long and hard for several months, did some research and reading. I decided to move forward and designate gas as a green energy,” he said.
Nolan Rutschilling, spokesman for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, said declaring natural gas clean in the state’s revised code “gives credence to this myth that natural gas is clean when we know it is not.”
“We’ve seen the natural gas industry and the oil industry try to frame natural gas as clean and sustainable for years. We know it is a major contributor to climate change and that it’s a fossil fuel,” he said.
Another amendment added to the poultry bill included language requiring state agencies to negotiate with gas and oil producers seeking to drill laterally under public land, such as state parks. The drilling has been permitted for a decade, but state agencies have been waiting for the creation of a commission to complete the paperwork.