In an attempt to smear Governor Kasich, and also to distract Ohioans from the embarrassing train wreck of a rollout for Obamacare, you’ve probably seen Democrats and the Steelworkers union talking a lot about Ormet. Ormet operates an aluminum smelting operation in southeastern Ohio.
The company has been losing money due to market conditions. Smelting aluminum requires an incredible amount of electricity, and they have asked the PUCO to force American Electric Power to give them even more discounts on power than they already have. They were turned down recently by PUCO and have been forced to close the plant.
Who are the Steelworkers blaming? The Governor.
They’ve created a propaganda website and petition which says,
Over 1,000 jobs at Ormet, a massive aluminum smelter along the banks of the Ohio River, are at risk of being lost.
The family supportive wages and benefits that were vital in sustaining the community and growing the local economy will be gone if Ohio Governor John Kasich doesn’t step in.
Eddy Fitzgerald and Ohio Democrats have joined in on blaming Kasich, too. Even the Plunderpals have been pushing the website.
Here’s the problem in their story.
The governor has no control or authority to tell PUCO what to do. By Ohio law, they are an independent board with no authority from politicians over their decisions.
The governor’s office has repeated this multiple times.
“The governor’s office is open to any suggestions and any ideas they have that can reverse falling aluminum prices and overcome the world market forces working against the industry,” Nichols said. “To date, however, the only thing they’ve proposed is for us to push around the PUCO, which is, under Ohio law, an independent entity. It’s not permissible for us to tell them what to do.”
But as we’ve seen often enough, unions and Democrats don’t care whether what they’re saying is true. They just continue to push the lie out to people who might not know the truth and know that there are certain people who will believe them without question.
PUCO’s decision is correct anyway. Why should all Ohioans be forced to pay more for electricity to prop up Ormet’s unprofitable business? Because that’s where the discounts come from. If PUCO forces AEP to give them deep discounts, that cost is passed on to all of their other customers.
They’ve already received a massive $309 million in discounts. If their business is in such bad shape, it’s not right to ask Ohioans to foot the bill to keep them open. That’s already a cost of $309,000 PER JOB, and the union and Democrats say “it’s not enough”.
And they do it while lying about what Kasich can do about it at the same time.
UPDATE: As seen on Twitter, Ohio Democrats are now re-writing our post.
Of course, what we said is that the governor has no authority over PUCO’s decisions. We didn’t say the governor couldn’t contact them. That would be ludicrous. But that’s what an ODP spokesman is now saying about our post. Heck, you or I can contact PUCO. That doesn’t mean we have authority over their decisions.
So, to cover for their lies about what the governor can do about PUCO’s decisions, they are now lying about our post.
Pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Ohio Democrats.
