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Democrats Urge Action on 'Hire Ohio' Legislation
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio House Democratic lawmakers are calling on Gov. Kasich to prioritize hiring Ohioans before the year’s end. During a press event Wednesday, the legislators noted that Kasich publicly commented that oil and gas companies with hydraulic fracturing operations in the state do not appear to be hiring many Ohioans. Kasich’s comments in the Columbus Dispatch indicated that some sort of action would be taken if some unknown hiring threshold for Ohioans was not ultimately met, they said.
“Recently, Governor Kasich realized that the oil and gas industry may not be hiring as many Ohioans as was once thought,” said state Rep. Denise Driehaus, D-Cincinnati. “House Democrats warned of this over six months ago, and offered a simple and sound legislative solution that Republicans fought at all costs.”
House Democrats attempted to address this issue in May through Gov. Kasich’s energy and natural resource budget bill, SB 315. The effort to have minimum in-state hiring standards in place was rejected by Ohio’s Republican leadership, just as it was this week when a similar amendment was offered on the House floor by state Rep. Robert Hagan, D-Youngstown.
“It’s really disappointing that some politicians like to talk jobs, but when the rubber meets the road no one wants to be in the driver’s seat,” said state Rep. Connie Pillich, D-Montgomery. “It is a failure of leadership when you reject sound policies just because they weren’t your ideas, or because someone from a different party presents them.”
The amendment offered would ensure that Ohioans benefit from the expansion of in-state fracking operations. Introduced on the House floor Tuesday as an amendment to Senate Bill 319, it would require that any time a company applies for a permit to drill a new horizontal well in Ohio, the owner of the well must submit a signed affidavit stating that at least 60% of their full-time employees are residents of Ohio.
“Gov. Kasich is paying lip service to Ohioans when he talks about hiring Ohioans first,” said Hagan. “We gave him and his Republican counterparts in the House real opportunities to address this issue and work in a bipartisan way. No one wanted to do it. Now, he knows that these companies aren’t hiring that many Ohioans, and he knows that a report is supposed to be issued on the exact numbers. It seems like Gov. Kasich is doing some preemptive grandstanding to save face.”
Kasich’s energy and natural resource budget bill included a provision that requires the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to publish workforce statistics on the number of Ohioans employed through oil and gas operations in the state. It’s unclear when the annual report must be published.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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