Trump Halts Biden Era Clean Energy Project In Vance’s Hometown

India-West News Desk

MIDDLETOWN, OH — A $1.6 billion steel industry modernization effort, launched under President Joe Biden and intended to reduce carbon emissions while revitalizing jobs in the Midwest, has been put on hold by the Trump administration, raising concerns about local health and economic impacts. And this is in Vice President JD Vance’s hometown.

Middletown’s role as a symbol of American industrial revival has been central to Vice President Vance’s political identity. He has repeatedly pointed to his family’s history at Middletown Works as proof of manufacturing’s vital role in stabilizing working-class communities. The project’s cancellation, however, raises doubts about the federal government’s support for the kind of industrial transition Vance has publicly championed but has not been able to deliver on.

The suspended project aimed to install a high-efficiency, gas-powered blast furnace at the Cleveland-Cliffs-owned Middletown Works plant. Backed by $500 million from the Inflation Reduction Act, the upgrade was expected to slash a million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, cut costs for the company by nearly half a billion dollars a year, and generate 1,200 construction jobs and 150 permanent positions in the town of 50,000.

Residents living near the mill told The Guardian they’ve already borne the brunt of industrial pollution for years, and saw the clean-energy retrofit as a rare opportunity for both environmental relief and economic revival.

Add to that relief from health conditions like COPD. The Guardian reported that public health data highlights the stakes: in neighborhoods adjacent to the mill, average life expectancy trails the east end of town by nearly a decade, a gap attributed in large part to pollution exposure.