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Ohio Environmental Council statement on Issue 1

Hannah Tyler, August 26, 2015

Way too often, we at the OEC find ourselves fighting legislation that runs contrary to what we know Ohioans want and believe.

I’ll give you just a few examples: Poll after poll has shown that the public wants action on global warming. But just last year we saw the General Assembly put Ohio’s clean energy standard on ice.

We buckeyes love our state parks, but despite this, the General Assembly voted to open our parks to oil and gas drilling.

For a decade, toxic algae has plagued Lake Erie and our inland lakes, yet it took half a million citizens in Toledo, Ohio losing their tap water for a weekend before the General Assembly did anything about it.

The bottom line is that Issue 1 will encourage more competitive elections. More competitive elections will lead to a more representative government and policies that actually reflect the will of the people.

Issue 1 will create a General Assembly that puts a greater premium on sensible, consensus-backed legislation to protect our air, land, and water; a General Assembly with less patience for narrow, special interest-sought legislation to exploit our natural environment.

Issue 1 is a major step forward for democracy in Ohio.