Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from medical mutuel, providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Wright is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter Wright dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online.

At OHEA.org.

Elections officials in Ohio are dealing with a new potential crisis in an already difficult year.

Environmental activists and oil and gas experts react to a potential flood of new federal money into green energy.

And meet the Ohioan who cracked the case of who was sending feces laced letters to elected officials.

That's all this week in the state of Ohio.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

It's been a tough year for elections officials in Ohio, two statewide primaries with the date of the one in August up in the air for several weeks because of court action on redistricting.

There's a general election this fall for US Senate, five statewide executive offices, three Supreme Court justices, 15 members of Congress and the entire Ohio House and half the Senate And now there's been a sudden burst of requests for records from the 2020 election.

Donald Trump won Ohio that year by eight percentage points, and there has never been any credible claim that there was a problem with that result.

Brian Sleet is the director of the Warren County Board of Elections and the president of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials.

He said the requests started coming in a couple of weeks ago.

Six or seven of them all the same, asking for the same things.

They basically went down a retention schedule asking us to retain all these documents, documents that were staged, ready for destruction.

We're required to follow a retention schedule provided to us by the Secretary of State's office and that particular election.

20, 20 has a 22 month retention schedule.

So.

So again, everything was getting staged You know, we have very little room as most board of elections to to store all of our used and unused ballots.

So So, you know, again, we're getting everything prepped, ready for construction.

And then we got those requests from, you know, basically two years ago.

So we're working with our county prosecutor that represents our office that each board of elections office is a little unique.

But again, we all all get our legal counsel advice on how to comply with requests.

So right now, we've agreed we're not going to destroy anything.

That's number one.

But number two is you know, we reached out to the requesters to ask them for some clarification on items.

They're asking for you.

There be significant cost and copying everything in our office, for example, you know, all of our ballots, you know, providing two sided copies would be a job in itself.

Then we could then they've asked for voting machine types.

And those are like just a little cash register that you would get at your supermarket when you go grocery shopping.

Those are about 60 to 70 feet long each twice a day in the morning and evening.

And they've asked for copies of those tapes, too.

So we really don't have the capability and copy of those.

So.

So we again asked for some clarification, offered them to the office and reviewed the documents in person.

That's happened before a couple of times in the past.

People want to see the ballots.

And only election officials are allowed to touch the voter ballots.

So we would be sitting there turning the ballots back and forth to make it tally the votes or do whatever they're wanting to do with those ballots.

But it's pretty vague request.

Yeah.

When you said six or seven requests, they're requesting an awful lot of information.

It sounds like they're requesting are they requesting every ballot are they requesting every tape from every voting machine?

And this is all from the 20, 20 election?

That's correct.

Basically, anything from that election including voter ID envelopes from absentee voting again down to, you know, the results tapes from the polls you know, a whole slew of things that they're asking for.

Which again, we, we have.

But it's just having the manpower and the supply and the machines to be able to copy these materials.

That's going to be the challenge.

So again, you know, we've reached out to them to get a clarification maybe a little bit a better understanding of what they're really trying to get.

And maybe we can guide them into a better direction of just saying a whole pack of ballots on the table and say, here you go.

So we're hoping, you know, as an association and my board of elections office that we can come to some type of agreement and better understanding of what they're really looking for.

What are these requests?

Are they do they look alike?

Do they seem similar or are they asking for different things or all of these very different requests?

The only thing different was the the email address.

They came from and the signature at the bottom do they were identical.

Yes.

You mentioned that other counties have also been experiencing this.

And so as President of the Ohio Association of Elections Officials, I imagine you've been in touch with other counties.

How many other counties is it all?

88 counties.

You know, we haven't we have not asked yet What I'm hearing is, yes, I'm hearing from the association.

You know, I've had many people reach out to me reaching out to the secretary of state's office as well.

Asking for some guidance.

But again, when it comes to these records request or anything like that, it really gets kicked back to the local board of elections You know, attorney, the legal representation in the office, we're a little concerned.

And we'll be again, if we're needing to fulfill everything on that request, that we will have to probably seek out the third party vendor to come in and make copies of the materials they're asking for boards of elections in other states are also reporting a flurry of lengthy public records requests from the 2020 vote, including North Carolina, Nevada, and Arizona, where election deniers have been actively trying to overturn the 2020 results.

The huge bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act, passed the U.S. Senate last week, with all 50 Democratic senators supporting it and all 50 Republicans opposed.

Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie breaking vote.

The bill allows for Medicare to negotiate.

The prices for certain expensive drugs creates a 15% minimum tax for corporations making $1,000,000,000 or more in income and pours hundreds of billions of dollars into clean energy.

It's getting praise from Ohio environmental groups, but the state's energy industry is pushing back.

As my Statehouse News Bureau colleague Andy Chao has been finding out, Yeah, Karen, as you said, it's a huge bill, has all sorts of measures in it.

But what it's really being touted for is it's a huge step forward in the fight against climate change.

I got to talk to Spencer Dearing with the Ohio Environmental Council's Action Fund on just how big of a deal this can be for Ohio.

What does this bill mean to you?

And groups like the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund when it comes to fighting climate change?

This bill is truly it has the potential to bring in a new date when it comes to the fight against the climate crisis.

We have in this bill a historic cost saving legislation that would make overdue investments in clean energy, improve energy security, and build a more affordable, healthy, just and equitable future for everybody across the board.

It has investments in environmental justice.

It works to reduce inflation and reduce the deficit.

You know, this bill has $300 billion in deficit reduction and $370 billion in energy security and climate change programs over the next ten years, something that is truly historic and will mean environmental justice for a lot of Americans across our nation.

What does it mean to be this close for all these policies, to be so close to actually crossing the finish line?

These are things that have been in the works for a while.

Yes.

This is this is not just been a crazy two year fight to try and get legislation passed through Congress, but really has been the work of decades, specifically the work of, you know, people of color and the environmental justice community, activists on the frontlines who have been working for decades to try and bring attention and investment into their communities.

And what's really important about this legislation in particular is that I will say it again, it is historic, not just in the size of the investment, but also in the impact.

This will unequivocally do incredible work to alleviate a lot of the pain and suffering that has been done by emissions and pollution over decades of environmental injustice to black and brown communities and communities of color and low income communities across our country.

And so what's really exciting about this is not just that it is a great thing for our economy, not just a great new day for the fight against the climate crisis, but it's going to put dollars incredibly targeted into the areas that really need them in order to be revitalized, which is really going to be important for that justice perspective.

And what we've been talking about right now, a lot of the focus is on money, how there's going to be a lot of investment.

Can you sort of connect the dots to people why money is so important in the fight against climate change?

Absolutely.

What this bill does a lot of different things.

So I'll start off by saying that this bill will lower consumer energy costs.

This bill includes home rebate, home energy rebate programs that will focus on low income consumers to help electrify their appliances and run more energy efficient appliances.

There we included ten years of consumer tax credits to help make homes more energy efficient and run on clean energy.

Decreasing not just your your monthly energy bill, but decreasing your emissions.

It'll include 4000 toddlers and consumer tax credits for low and middle income families to buy used clean vehicles.

So that way electric vehicles and other hybrids can be more accessible for people across the board.

And so that you can decrease your dependance on high gas prices and things like that and continue to emit fewer emissions These are these are direct investments that are going into people's pockets that can help them not just be more clean and have less less emissions, but also save money.

We know that the cleanest energy is the energy that you never use.

And it's also the cheapest energy investing and energy efficiency measures.

Will be important to overdue reducing overall energy use and energy bills for people all across this country.

And that is going to hit pocketbooks every single month.

For every single person.

So there might be some Ohioans out there who might say, wait a minute, this sounds familiar.

Didn't Ohio have these types of things in 2008?

Didn't we have renewable energy standards, energy efficiency standards?

How important is it for the federal government to be doing what it's doing now?

Given that Ohio has rolled back its alternative energy and renewable energy standards just in 20.

19.

Absolutely.

Of course, the passage of HB six and the corruption around that that allowed that to happen really set our state back.

When it comes to the fight against the climate crisis and also really for consumers increased energy costs and put lighters directly on people's bills to pay for out-of-state coal plants.

What this bill does and what federal legislation can do is bring us back into the future, bring us back to focus on making sure that we are lowering our energy costs, lowering our energy use and being able to really have a energy system that is secure in American domestic manufacturing.

It brings jobs to our state and will decrease costs for consumers.

So this is this is different, of course, in the size and the scope.

It's also, frankly, just different in the ability of our economy to to handle these these, you know, these investments.

You know, we're in a place now where the economy, frankly, is moving toward what will be the future of energy in this country.

Renewable, clean energy will be cost effective and cost efficient for families across our state.

And so having this legislation in place now to help accelerate that process will be an investment in our future.

So Ohio has a pretty large coal generation plants here, a pretty large coal industry here, a large oil and gas industry.

What do you say to groups, energy groups that believe that this can have a harmful impact on the industries here in Ohio?

First and foremost, we understand and appreciate the you know, the workers in Ohio who are doing good work, you know, in a lot of different places of our economy.

It's important to recognize also that Ohio is number eight in the country among you know, states with solar related jobs.

So we we have a huge renewable energy economy here in the state of Ohio, too.

Ohio actually has it's estimated over 100,000 renewable energy jobs today.

And that is only set to grow exponentially when we start investing in renewable energy on the national scale.

But frankly, also change our policies here at the state level so that we can have a renewable energy future for our state.

That includes working with our you know, with unions and with others to include a just transition to make sure that folks who are doing good work and those other industries as those industries, you know, slowly shrink back in favor of the renewable energy industries, a new economy, that those jobs are made available and that those workers are trained and able to take those jobs and that those jobs are good union jobs that pay good wages and will support families across our state.

Now, Spencer Derek mentioned environmental and consumer advocates say the state's renewable energy and energy efficiency mandates actually help bring down costs on electric bills overall in Ohio.

Those standards were eliminated in the huge energy bill, HB six, which also bailed out nuclear power plants and is now at the center of a bribery investigation.

But Ohio Republicans that voted to repeal and roll back those standards in HB six still say it reduce consumer fees to pay for those green energy investments.

So the federal plan would put $369 billion into things like renewable energy and energy efficiency sources.

I talked to George Brown with the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program about what the Inflation Reduction Act would mean for the oil and gas industry.

What kind of impact could these climate proposals have on the oil and gas industry here in Ohio?

Well, while we don't weigh in on any particular piece of legislation, and what I can't speak to more broadly are some of the proposals, whether it's in this or from other groups or organizations who are coming at the.

The idea that the industry has not been working to be impactful on the environmental side in terms of reducing emissions.

What I'll speak to is that Ohio's natural gas and oil industry has actually been leading the way.

When we talk about harmonizing both the environmental concerns and the economic concerns of producing the essential energy that we need every day.

So just for an example, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Information Administration, Ohio has reduced our carbon dioxide emissions by 37% on the electric generation side.

And that's been thanks to natural gas, electric generation displacing coal, electric generation in the state.

And if you go back to 1990 the state of Ohio is producing 15 times more natural gas and oil.

But yet has reduced our CO2 emissions output by 15% over that same time.

So we're producing more energy and reducing our carbon emissions throughout that time.

So it's important to have an honest conversation and dialog and look at what the industry has been doing on these important environmental pieces.

And then when you're talking about particularly at a time when we know our country and our world is needing more energy to be very thoughtful about any sort of proposal that's going to be restrictive or disincentivize producing the energy that are globally needs right now.

So what does that look like in Ohio is is if Congress passes regulations, if the federal government puts down regulations that industries and companies in Ohio need to follow.

What kind of impact can it have on those companies here in the state?

It can have a serious impact when we're talking about any sort of specific policy or regulation.

I think, again, right now at this time, the producers in the state and the industry in the state as a whole have really demonstrated their ability to work cleaner and safer than really anywhere else in the world.

So when you're talking about whether it's fees or further regulations or just an environment that is not conductive to produce the energy that we need, that's going to restrict that production and that access to the energy that Ohioans are looking for.

We've seen it with the disruptions of gas pricing that we've seen disruptions in the natural gas market.

And that's all due to supply and demand and trying to meet the needs that the consumer faces right now.

That's with the overlay of the geopolitical concerns that have happened in Europe and the disruptions from the war with Russia and Ukraine.

All of that has had a serious impact on energy markets.

So, again, it need to be thoughtful of putting any types of restrictions on the industry in Ohio.

At a time when consumers are looking for more energy.

And that experts agree.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts through 2050 that our country is going to be using more natural gas and oil, not less.

So be thoughtful on how we can meet those needs.

In addition to meeting the concerns on the environmental impact side.

And what's been clear is that natural gas is that fuel source to meet those needs.

And it's been demonstrated with the carbon dioxide reductions and the ability to produce more energy That's that's part of what I was going to ask to, because I know when it comes to the conversation of of addressing climate change, there have been a lot of people out there who say, well, natural gas is sort of that middle alternative where it is still, you know, a resource that's drilled from the ground, but it doesn't give off as much carbon emissions as other resource is.

What kind of role can natural gas play going into the future?

When it comes to America's fight against climate change and Ohio's role in all of that?

That's a great question and a great point to talk about, because, again, it's been proven to help reduce our emissions in our state and our country.

Has been due to the electric generation transition away from coal to natural gas.

We've seen that in Ohio.

And actually just recently, a new natural gas power plant project has moved forward in Trumbull County in northeast Ohio, because, again, we need the energy to live our everyday lives.

So how are we doing that in a way that helps reduce that environmental impact?

And also, let's think of the role that America can play as a world wide leader in providing cleaner energy sources to our allies in Europe.

It's very clear that our friends in Germany and other places in Europe are in need of energy sources right now because Russians have been cutting them off from their fuel sources.

So Germans are turning to previous electric generation examples like coal plants to come back online.

And that's been demonstrated to have a much more costly environmental impact than the natural gas.

So unleashing U.S. LNG, liquefied natural gas sources to get to Europe to provide the fuel that they need is a way that Ohio and America can step up to to fill fill that leadership role, but also that energy role and providing cleaner sources of energy across the globe.

Because, again, we know that it's going to be necessary.

Those sources of energy are needed.

And Ohio may natural gas is the way to go.

If you're talking about really in a serious way, filling those energy needs and reducing CO2 emissions and other environmental impact, it was an unpleasant and even frightening story that some people found some bizarre black humor in state lawmakers, members of Congress.

Ohio's Supreme Court justices and judges receiving letters stained with feces.

The mailings went out over nearly a year and the case was finally cracked last month with the arrest of 77 year old Richard John Stanley of Mogg.

A door a former Portage County Common Pleas Court mediator.

He's charged with sending potentially hazardous materials through the mail.

He could go to prison for a year and be fined $100,000.

That arrest may not have happened without the work of Bill Crawford, the marshal for the Ohio Supreme Court.

Crawford intercepted a letter addressed to an Ohio Supreme Court justice a year ago.

One of my duties here is Marshall is to keep track of all the inappropriate communications.

So everything that comes this oddball.

It lands on my desk.

But Crawford said these letters were different.

Well, the first one that we received was I it up there wasn't much in it, except it had this brown colored stuff.

And I wasn't real sure.

And when we opened mail of the sort were always gloves so that thankfully.

So the next one we received had a the brown liquid wasn't evident on the outside of the first envelope received, but it sure was on the second.

So gloves ran cut it open and took out a small postcard sized piece of cardboard and written across it in black ink was racist.

Why?

I have no idea.

After the first letter, Crawford alerted the Ohio State Patrol and traced it back to a six story office building in Akron.

Over the next ten months, letters were received by all 25 Republican Ohio State Senators, also by members of Congress and appeals court judges.

And two more letters came to the Ohio Supreme Court by July.

Multiple agencies were checking into the letters.

And Crawford reached out to all of them with what he knew.

We worked with other law enforcement agencies, the OSU, HP, the Marshal Service, the threat assessment group of the U.S. Capitol Police, and then, of course, the postal inspectors, because the investigation is still continuing.

Crawford can't say which three justices got the four letters.

And he says these incidents were the worst he's seen at the court.

Crawford is retiring from the Ohio Supreme Court this year, capping a long career in law enforcement in Ohio and New York.

And he says it was very rewarding to be part of this high profile case involving so many agencies.

And this week, a legendary artist and philanthropist came to Columbus on a day named for her.

Tuesday was Dolly Parton day in Ohio.

And Parton appeared with first lady Fran DeWine at an event at the Ohio Union on the OSU campus, The Imagination Library, to encourage childhood literacy and reading what started 27 years ago by Dolly Parton with her father, who had been illiterate.

It's now sent 186 million free books to kids under five around the world.

3 million of those to Ohio children.

All they have to do is register.

And 45% of eligible kids in Ohio have done that.

And that's it for this week.

My colleagues at the Statehouse News Bureau of Ohio Public Radio and Television.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our Web site at State Newstalk and follow us on the show on Facebook and Twitter And please join us again next time for the state of Ohio.

Support for the statewide broadcast of the state of Ohio comes from Medical Mutual providing more than 1.4 million Ohioans peace of mind with a selection of health insurance plans online at med mutual dot com slash Ohio by the law offices of Porter Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Now with eight locations across the country, Porter Right is a legal partner with a new perspective to the business community.

More at Porter right dot com and from the Ohio Education Association representing 124,000 members who work to inspire their students to think creatively and experience the joy of learning online at OHEA.org.