ZANESVILLE, Ohio — U.S. Sen. Jon Husted traveled to Zanesville Monday for a closed roundtable with Ohio oil and gas industry executives, using the visit to promote legislation that eliminates the natural gas tax for 10 years and expands federal leasing for oil, gas, and coal on public lands.
Husted framed the meeting as a push to reduce reliance on foreign energy and cut regulations he described as slowing domestic production down.
The senator pointed to his support for the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, signed into law in July 2025, as the cornerstone of his energy agenda. The law’s energy provisions include a 10-year elimination of the natural gas tax, expanded oil, gas, and coal leasing on federal lands, and an extension of the clean hydrogen production tax credit through January 1, 2028 — a provision tied to Ohio’s Appalachian Clean Energy Hub, known as ARCH2.
Critics of hydrogen projects connected to natural gas infrastructure have long questioned whether such programs represent genuine clean energy investment or serve primarily as a financial lifeline for the fossil fuel industry. The law contains no provisions directed at renewable energy expansion, energy storage, or reducing carbon emissions.
Husted’s first piece of legislation to become law was a resolution reversing a Biden-era rule that established energy efficiency standards on appliances and energy systems. The Biden administration had argued that those standards would save American consumers hundreds of dollars annually on energy costs. Husted and industry groups argued the standards were burdensome overreach.
Ohio ranks among the nation’s largest natural gas-producing states. The Zanesville area sits in the heart of Ohio’s Utica and Marcellus shale drilling region, where residents and local officials have raised longstanding concerns about the pace of industrial development and its effects on local infrastructure and quality of life.