Trump's green retreat

Summary

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Podcast Summary – Business Daily: “Trump's Green Retreat”

Host: Erin Delmore, BBC World Service
Date: October 1, 2025
Location: Middletown, Ohio

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Overview

In this episode of Business Daily, host Erin Delmore explores Middletown, Ohio, a Rust Belt steel town at the heart of America’s industrial and political crossroads. The episode delves into the community’s struggle with industrial pollution, the promise and abrupt cancellation of a major “green steel” initiative, and what the reversal of federal green subsidies under President Trump means for workers, residents, and the future of U.S. manufacturing. The story is both local and national, reflecting debates about clean energy, jobs, and the power of electoral choices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Middletown – A Town Caught Between Industry and Clean Energy

• [01:08]–[03:00] Middletown, Ohio, famed for its steel mills and as the hometown of Vice President J.D. Vance, remains a community deeply rooted in heavy industry.

• Residents like Heather Gibson recall family ties to the mill and the pride and pain of living with “the nastiest smell” from the nearby coke plant, highlighting years of worsening air quality.

  “The nastiest smell. I mean, it'll get in your house. It burns your throat.”
  — Heather Gibson, 01:45

• Longstanding pollution has led to changes in daily routines, like keeping windows closed at night and changing air filters every few weeks.

  “It was not like this before, no.”
  — Heather Gibson, 05:44

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2. The Green Upgrade That Wasn't

• [06:04] The Biden administration’s $500 million grant for a hydrogen-powered furnace was set to dramatically cut emissions (by up to 70%) and boost green jobs.

• The community was initially ecstatic:

  “I was ecstatic. I was excited. I posted it on Facebook, as did a lot of people.”
  — Heather Gibson, 06:04

• The plant would have served as the nation’s model for “green steel,” feeding cleaner material into American car manufacturing.

• Trump’s election changed everything. In January 2025, the new administration paused all green energy grants, and Cleveland Cliffs, the local mill’s owner, backed out of the conversion.

• The company cited a lack of hydrogen supply and the suspension of federal funds, as well as insufficient profitability.

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3. The Political Trade-Off: Jobs, Pollution, and Voting Patterns

• [08:51] Scotty Robertson, a local pastor and city council candidate, articulates the community’s health impact and the complex motivations behind local voting:

  “We don't talk a lot about clean energy, but they sure talk about pollution... But the other part of this is a messaging problem among Democrats and people who are proponents of clean energy.”
  — Scotty Robertson, 09:23

• [11:24]–[12:07] Despite health concerns, Butler County gave Trump and Vance 65% of its vote. Vance’s personal popularity overshadowed green policies.

  “It is so good to be back home for once, isn't it?”
  — J.D. Vance, 11:48

• Some residents suffer directly from pollution-induced illnesses, but the sense of connection to local leaders and the political narrative overtook environmental priorities.

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4. Economics and the Hurdles to Going Green

• [13:32]–[16:51] Professor David Brasington (University of Cincinnati) breaks down the reasons the steel plant project collapsed:

  • No industrial hydrogen supply.
  • Tariffs made traditional, domestic steel more profitable.
  • The project’s full cost ($1.6bn) far exceeded the grant; automakers weren't willing to pay extra for green steel.

  “They reached out to big customers like the automakers and said, would you be willing to pay a premium for green steel? And their customers said no.”
  — David Brasington, 13:32

• While domestic steel booms (thanks to tariffs), advanced technology like hydrogen-powered furnaces remains economically risky without government support.

• Brasington highlights the “chicken and egg” problem of green tech: investment is needed to make it affordable and scalable, but profitability is distant.

  “There's a concept in economics called economies of scale...the more of something that you do, the cheaper the cost of production becomes.”
  — David Brasington, 15:38

• The episode suggests that, with little government investment, green breakthroughs will have to come from the private sector, but at present they "just don’t pay yet."

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5. Voter Sentiment and Political Responsibility

• [18:11] Residents chose local pride and emotional connections over policy substance in the election, as Heather Gibson candidly explains.

  “The town voted for it with emotion. The town voted for a hometown boy. And let's just be honest that's what we did. You know, we didn't vote for green energy. We didn't vote for policy. We voted largely for our hometown boy.”
  — Heather Gibson, 18:11

• She laments the polarization and lack of collective action:

  “Aren't we all just in it together? ...We should care about everybody... This country is a mess, and this is why we can't get anywhere in America.”
  — Heather Gibson, 18:40

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tension Between Clean Air and Politics:

  “If you ask the question, do you want to see more clean energy in your community…you're going to say no. If you ask…do you believe that your children deserve to grow up in communities without pollution, then the answer would be yes.”
  — Scotty Robertson, 02:18–02:29

• On Economic and Moral Trade-offs:

  “The number one job of our systems of government is to keep people safe.”
  — Scotty Robertson, 12:38

• On Emotional Voting and Divided America:

  “We voted largely for our hometown boy…We're voting emotionally now and not voting policy. That's what we're doing, and that's why we are where we are.”
  — Heather Gibson, 18:11

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:08 – Introduction to Middletown and its steel legacy
• 03:55 – Resident descriptions of industrial pollution
• 06:04 – The promise and cancellation of the "green steel" plan
• 08:51 – Scotty Robertson on pollution and missed political opportunities
• 11:24 – Election results and local attitudes toward J.D. Vance
• 13:32 – Economic analysis of the green project by Prof. Brasington
• 15:38 – Discussion of “economies of scale” and the challenge for green tech
• 18:11 – Resident reflections on emotion-driven voting and national division

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Conclusion

This episode offers a nuanced portrait of Middletown—a microcosm of America’s industrial heartland—caught between old loyalties, economic realities, the promise of innovation, and the hard politics of green transition. Local voices, from steel families to pastors and economists, reveal the complex interplay of emotion, economics, and policy that shapes the outcomes of environmental progress, and why, for now, Middletown’s green future is on ice.

Transcript

[Erin Delmore]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[Ryan]

Hey, let's talk about your expense report.

[Erin Delmore]

I didn't submit an expense report. You will.

[Ryan]

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[Erin Delmore]

What are you talking about?

[Ryan]

SAP Concur uses advanced AI to audit and automatically detect out of policy expenses. It's the breakthrough I needed to focus more on our future.

[Erin Delmore]

These are my future expenses? Yes.

[Ryan]

And self defense classes are out of policy.

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I'll need self defense classes.

[Ryan]

You will?

[Scotty Robertson]

For what?

[Ryan]

It's a big dog.

[Erin Delmore]

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[Heather Gibson]

You don't look like Princess.

[Erin Delmore]

At least I'll take that as a compliment.

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[Erin Delmore]

Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Erin Delmore. Today we're exploring a steel town in America's Rust Belt. Not just any town. This is Middletown, Ohio and it's where US Vice President J.D. vance was born and raised.

[J.D. Vance]

I will never forget where I came from, ladies and gentlemen. I came from Middletown, Ohio. I am proud of it and I will never forget where I came from.

[Erin Delmore]

But long before it was depicted in Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy, it was best known as the home of steel plant Middletown Works. That plant was recently slated for a big green upgrade that would have cut down on air pollution.

[Heather Gibson]

The nastiest smell. I mean, it'll get in your house. It burns your throat.

[Erin Delmore]

But not long after residents saw their most famous neighbor make his way to Washington, that planned upgrade was put on hold.

[Scotty Robertson]

Federal funds not only have been canceled that were once promised, but the reality that there will probably be no more federal funds that will help transition to clean energy.

[Erin Delmore]

So if people in the town say they want clean energy and less pollution, why didn't they vote for it?

[Scotty Robertson]

I think it depends on how we ask the question.

[Erin Delmore]

It's a story about big business.

[Scotty Robertson]

If you ask the question, do you want to see more clean energy in your community and you are a right leaning thinker, then you're going to say no.

[Erin Delmore]

Public health.

[Scotty Robertson]

If you ask the question, do you believe that your children deserve to grow up in communities without pollution, then the answer would be yes.

[Erin Delmore]

Trade offs.

[David Brasington]

Would you be willing to pay a premium for green steel and politics?

[Heather Gibson]

And this is why we can't get anywhere in America.

[Erin Delmore]

That's all coming up on Business Daily on the BBC World Service. Hi, Heather. I'm Erin. Nice to meet you.

[Heather Gibson]

Nice to meet you.

[Erin Delmore]

Thank you so much for making the time for us.

[Heather Gibson]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Erin Delmore]

Heather Gibson has called Middletown, Ohio, home since she was a kid. She gave me a tour on a gorgeous sunny day in September.

[Heather Gibson]

My parents were some of the first people to buy homes when the mill bought the farm. And they offered it to the guys that worked out the mill, I think low interest loans.

[Erin Delmore]

Her dad worked for Cleveland Cliffs, America's second largest producer of steel. The steel plant, now called Middletown Works is still up and running. It has been for more than 120 years. It dominates the skyline in the small town, popping up behind school playgrounds and train tracks. At her current home a few blocks away, we can look, look over across the street and see a plant that makes coke. That's a fuel used in the steel making process derived from coal.

[Heather Gibson]

My grandparents lived in Kentucky back then, in the 70s, they could burn coal in their fireplace. You would wake up in the morning and there'd be that, just that sweet smell of coal. And I love that smell because it takes me back. This is that smell times 5,000, though, and it's just not good. It's not good.

[Erin Delmore]

I couldn't smell it. Sitting in a rocking chair on Heather's front porch at 10 in the morning. She said the smell is strongest when the coke plant fires up in the evenings. But I did wonder if I should be wearing a mask like the kind we used to wear during COVID That's because the National Institutes of Health, part of the U.S. department of Health, describes coke oven emissions as a mix of dust vapors and gases, some of which are carcinogens.

[Heather Gibson]

So we'll be sitting here, maybe sitting outside, maybe sitting in our house. It might be six, seven o' clock at night. And all of a sudden this smell just starts wafting through. Whether you're out here or you're in the house and you can start smelling it, you immediately have to get up. It's too late by the time you smell it because now it's everywhere in your house. But you immediately have to get up and shut your windows. If they're open, we don't even bother opening them anymore. It's just the most awful smell that you've ever smelled in your life.

[Erin Delmore]

The way it works is large ovens heat coal and turn it into coke. And that's what's used to power the steel making plants. While I couldn't smell the fumes, I could see the residue. A layer of dark particles on the white window frame. Some black spots on a yellow Mustang.

[Heather Gibson]

And this won't even, no matter how hard you, it won't come off. You know, it's soot that has gotten grained into the paint.

[Erin Delmore]

A layer of gray on one of those accordion style air filters that Heather said she just changed. She told me she used to change her air filters a couple times a year. Now it's every other week, what, four days?

[Heather Gibson]

A couple days worth. Wow.

[Erin Delmore]

And you said it wasn't like this before.

[Heather Gibson]

It was not like this before, no.

[Erin Delmore]

Heather says the pollution got worse when the coke plant moved in years ago. And so she was elated when she learned that a plan was in place to change the way that Middletown Works derived its power from coke to hydrogen powered furnaces. A cleaner alternative that's getting some traction in the US and around the world.

[Heather Gibson]

I was ecstatic. I was excited. I posted it on Facebook, as did a lot of people. Within an hour, everybody was posting about it in the town. It was so exciting.

[Erin Delmore]

But it was short lived. The Biden administration had promised billions of federal dollars to be used in the transition toward green energy in the U.S. it's not just a moral imperative, it's an economic imperative as well. Investing in our clean energy future is an enormous opportunity. Enormous opportunity for every country to create good paying jobs and spur a broad based economic recovery. It was billed as the Inflation Reduction Act. And back in March 2024, Cleveland Cliffs won a $500 million government grant to build a hydrogen powered furnace at its Middletown plant. It's a big win for Middletown. Today the U.S. department of Energy announced a $500 million grant for the Middletown Works steel plant.

[David Brasington]

The furnace at the heart of Middletown Works, the sprawling plant you see behind me here in Middletown is in line for a massive infusion of federal funding. That cash is going to be combined with private dollars to create the lowest greenhouse gas emitting plant of its kind in North America.

[Erin Delmore]

It was forecast to cut emissions by up to 70% and create 170 full time jobs plus 1200 temporary construction jobs. But most of all, it was hailed as a model for green steel that would begin feeding low carbon steel into America's automotive sector. But in January this year, President Trump and J.D. vance came into power and and put a pause on that $500 million grant, among other green initiatives.

[BBC Announcer]

We begin this hour with major moves by the White House. The Trump administration has paused all federal grants and loans. There is now a temporary hold on all programs related to dei, the Green New Deal, and foreign aid assistance.

[Erin Delmore]

And now they talk about the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal. Everybody go home. You just lost your jobs. This past SP spring, while the grant was under review by the Trump administration, Cleveland Cliffs backed out of the plant upgrade. Cleveland Cliffs declined to comment. But earlier this year, the firm's CEO said they couldn't move forward because of a lack of available hydrogen. The federal government had already put the grant money on ice. Environmentalists hoped this would be a blueprint for converting steel plants from coal to hydrogen powered furnaces all across the U.S. but not anymore. To the surprise of some who expected more from the town's most famous resident.

[Scotty Robertson]

The hope is that he would make sure that the policies that came from the administration would be policies that by and large would lift Middletown families up.

[Erin Delmore]

Scotty Robertson is a pastor in town and is running for Middletown City Council. We caught up at Fraser's, a small diner on the town's main road, one of those cozy spots where locals swap stories over eggs and coffee.

[Heather Gibson]

The omelet ring.

[Scotty Robertson]

Now that we have been in the reality of this new administration for a few months now, we're finding that that's actually not the case.

[Erin Delmore]

He's putting it mildly. Scotty is clearly no fan of the Trump agenda.

[Scotty Robertson]

So, I mean, I was raised in the coal fields of southern West Virginia, so I know a little bit about coal. My grandfather was a coal miner. I think once again, we don't talk a lot about clean energy, but they sure talk about pollution and they sure talk about the impact that pollution has on their properties and on their health and on the and on the long term sustainability of their families. So people absolutely talk about pollution. But I mean, here's the but the other part of this is a messaging problem among Democrats and people who are proponents of clean energy. I mean, we should be talking about it better and we should be talking about it in ways that people actually can understand it and the real time implications that it has on the lives of people, not in the abstract.

[Erin Delmore]

You're listening to Business daily from the BBC World Service.

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[Erin Delmore]

I'm Erin Delmore and today we're in Middletown, Ohio, where the local steel plant has had $500 million of green subsidies to convert to hydrogen power put on hold. In the 2024 US presidential election. Donald Trump and JD Vance pulled in around 65% of the vote in Butler county, where Middletown is located. J.D. vance even held a rally at Middletown High School that summer.

[J.D. Vance]

It is so good to be back home for once, isn't it? Wow, we had an amazing crowd here. We have an amazing crowd here. We had hundreds of people outside that couldn't even get in. And I'm just so grateful to Middletown for welcoming me home. It is good to be here. Thank you guys. God bless you.

[Erin Delmore]

Meanwhile, Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim walls won around 35% of the vote. Local pastor and election candidate Scotty Robertson.

[Scotty Robertson]

Again, I talked to a lady yesterday who lived out of Middletown and came back to Middletown and because of some environmental factors, now has developed asthma and a breathing condition where it's hard for her to even go outside of her home.

[Erin Delmore]

So I asked him, whose responsibility is it? Is it the companies or the federal government's or any government or the citizens with the way they vote, I think.

[Scotty Robertson]

It'S all the above. Ultimately, the citizens get to decide the life that they want. And so I think it starts with the citizens. But I think there is an obligation in our system of government. The number one job of our systems of government is to keep people safe.

[Erin Delmore]

I wanted to get to the heart of why the Middletown plant upgrade unraveled. So I met Professor David Brasington outside a coffee shop on the University of Cincinnati campus about an hour's drive south. I think we need a coffee. How do you feel? Okay. Something cool for us and iced tea for you. Ice cream tea. You got it the place is buzzing with caffeinated students chatting and typing away. David's an economist and James Kaut's chair in political economy. So I started by asking him why Cleveland Cliffs walked away from the grant.

[David Brasington]

One of the biggest was it didn't have an industrial source of hydrogen. You need a lot of hydrogen, and they just wouldn't be able to have it in the quantities they need to make the plant. Two other reasons. One was there were tariffs involved, and the tariffs made domestically produced steel more economically viable. So they decided to sort of just make hay while the sun shines and produce a lot of domestic steel in their current way instead of ramping up. And the third was that the total cost of the project was $1.6 billion. So the $500 million grant wasn't enough to cover it. They just didn't think it was economically viable, especially after the Department of Energy froze the funds to produce it anyway. But it wasn't a viable plan. It wouldn't be profitable. In fact, they reached out to big customers like the automakers and said, would you be willing to pay a premium for green steel? And their customers said no.

[Erin Delmore]

Did you catch that? While it's a tough moment for quote, unquote, green steel, it. It's a great moment for steel in general. That's because tariffs are making imported foreign steel more expensive. So the domestic steel business is booming, and any efforts put toward changing the way the steel is made, well, slows down the steel being made, which slows down the money coming in. And right now, it's good money. Is that, in a way, a bigger example of what's going on in the US because there is a lot of demand for more sustainable solutions to how America does its industrialization and manufacturing and production. But there's always going to be a big economic startup cost, and it's never going to be the quickest or cheapest way forward in a business plan.

[David Brasington]

Right now, technology available is cheapest a certain way. But technology changes over time.

[Erin Delmore]

And so in that way, this hydrogen technology is the new technology. And I guess if it were to be invested in and used, it could become more popular like you're talking about. But it almost sounds to me like a bit of a chicken and egg thing where if you could build it, you could show that it's useful and viable and use it in more places, but you can't show it's useful until you're using it, and you can't use it until it's built.

[David Brasington]

Exactly. There's a concept in economics called economies of scale, which says that the more of something that you do, the cheaper the cost of production become. So that could have been the case for this new technology. So given current technology, this is a set of choices we face. But it's always good to try to advance technology because we want to have our cake and eat it, too. So what we really want is to produce a lot of steel and no pollution. And given current technology, that's not possible. But with technological advances, we may get there, or at least get toward there.

[Erin Delmore]

What course do you think this sets the country on in terms of its climate agenda? You could even say relative to other countries in the world, what does this sort of portend for the US over the next three years, or maybe more than that?

[David Brasington]

More of the advances in technology are probably going to have to come from the private sector because it seems like there's less government willingness to fund a lot of new technologies that might be green. And if you just look at the cost benefit from a firm's perspective, a lot of the green initiatives just don't pay yet. They need government. They need taxpayer money to make them profitable, to make them make sense.

[Erin Delmore]

We reached out to Cleveland Cliffs and to Sunkoche Energy, which produces the coke that's powering the Middletown plant, for comment, but we didn't hear back. In an earnings call, The Cleveland Cliffs CEO LorenColves said the company is involved in conversations with the Department of Energy on revamping the canceled project to preserve and enhance Middletown using beautiful coal, beautiful coke, beautiful natural gas. We don't know if the canceled grant will be revamped as Mr. Goncalves floated, but we have a better understanding of the interplay between corporations, government, and voters. Each entity has a role to play and levers to pull in any transition toward green steel in Middletown. And so, as we sat in rocking chairs on her front porch, I asked Heather why, if residents wanted better air, they didn't vote for it. We're in Ohio. Ohio is known as a battleground state. It's a purple state. Sometimes it's red conservative, Sometimes it's blue liberal. And the political argument through this story is that elections have consequences. If this town wanted to keep the green energy subsidies that were promised during the Biden administration, the town would vote for a continuation of President Biden's policies through his Democratic successor, who happened to be his vice president, Kamala Harris, and that the town didn't vote for that administration.

[Heather Gibson]

The town voted for it with emotion. The town voted for a hometown boy. And let's just be honest that's what we did. You know, we didn't vote for green energy. We didn't vote for policy. We voted largely for our hometown boy. You know, that's what we did. And that's the honest truth. You know, there's a lot of Trump supporters around here, but again, we're. I think we're voting emotionally now and not voting policy. That's what we're doing, and that's why we are where we are. And that included probably even Biden's presidency. It was very much an emotional vote. And I don't care whether you're Republican or Democrat, a liberal or a conservative, it doesn't matter. Aren't we all just in it together? Right? Do I care if you're a Republican, whether or not you're suffering? I do care. Do you care if I'm a Democrat, whether I'm suffering? You should care. We should care about everybody, no matter what we are. This country is a mess, and this is why we can't get anywhere in America.

[Erin Delmore]

That's it for this episode of Business Daily. Thanks for listening. The program was presented by me, Erin Delmore, and produced by Natalie Jimenez. To hear more, just search for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

[Ryan]

Hey, Ryan, that was a fast trip. It was like you teleported.

[Erin Delmore]

Yeah, just got in. I'll get all my expenses logged, I promise.

[Ryan]

Oh, no, you're okay. SAP Concur uses advanced AI so your expense report will practically right itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. All right, so just curious, would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at, say, random travel destinations?

[Scotty Robertson]

Margaret, are you building a teleporter?

[Ryan]

No. Yes.

[Erin Delmore]

SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster. Learn [e-mail].