Thanks to you, the Ohio budget is better for our state parks and public lands.

The Ohio budget process is finally over. The legislature sent their big, ugly budget to Gov. Mike DeWine on June 26, giving him just four days to read through a 5,500-page bill setting forth the operating budget for every state agency for the next two years – and veto the parts he didn’t like.

DeWine has not been shy about using his veto pen on previous budgets – he vetoed 44 items in the 2023 budget bill, 14 items in 2021, and 25 items in the 2019 bill.

This year DeWine vetoed a record 67 items – including a number of special favors for the oil and gas industry. Some items we asked DeWine to veto, some we did not, but all are listed below.

We want to sincerely thank you for your advocacy regarding the environmental items, and so many other awful items in this budget bill. Overall this is not a good bill – tax cuts for the rich remain, along with $600 million for billionaires to build a new stadium in a Cleveland suburb, while cutting funds for libraries and health care.

But it’s less awful than it could have been, thanks to you – and these days that’s something to celebrate.

Here are some of the items DeWine vetoed in HB 96. You’ll note that each item encompasses multiple provisions.

Oil and Gas - Bids and Leases for Exploration on State-Owned Land

• Language that would have required the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to fully execute a lease for fracking public land within 30 days of awarding the bid. This would unnecessarily rush the leasing process, putting the many provisions to protect our parks and wildlife areas at risk. We asked for this veto and we got it, thanks to you!

• Language that would have prohibited ODNR from charging an oil and gas company anything beyond what is specifically authorized in the lease – meaning the state potentially could not levy fines on companies that do not follow the rules or make them pay to clean up after an accident. We asked for this veto and we got it, thanks to you!

• Language that would have given an oil and gas company the option to extend a lease to frack public land for five years. DeWine’s veto restored this time frame to three years under existing law. We asked for this veto and we got it, thanks to you!

• Language that would have allowed an oil and gas company to negotiate “surface use” of state land – meaning they can frack IN our parks and public lands – and to keep that use even if they temporarily shut down a well due to market conditions. Thanks to DeWine’s veto, oil and gas companies that get surface use in the future (DeWine has prohibited it while he’s in office) won’t get to keep it if they shut down a well, even temporarily.

• Language that would have given oil and gas companies that got a lease to frack public lands up to 60 days to pay any advance royalties or bonuses owed. DeWine’s veto means this time frame was restored to 10 days under existing law.

• Language that would have allowed the shot clock on oil and gas leases to frack public land to be stopped if the land has to go through a federal approval process. Such a process applies to Zepernick and Leesville wildlife areas. DeWine’s veto means the clock on these leases will continue to run during the federal approval process.

• Language that would have allowed oil and gas companies that are fracking public land to defer all payments to the state if litigation of any kind is filed, until a final non-appealable order is issued by a court. This means the case would have to go through months if not years of litigation in multiple courts before the company had to start paying the royalties and bonuses promised to the state. DeWine’s veto means these companies must pay on schedule, regardless of whether any sort of legal action has been filed.

Waterways Improvement

You may remember that one of our asks was for DeWine to restore cuts to the ODNR Parks and Recreation line that supports operation and maintenance of our state parks.

The legislature’s budget cut that line item in half for 2026, and by 13% for 2027, then told ODNR to make up the difference with money from the State Land Royalties Fund, which oil and gas companies pay into from their leases to frack public land.

DeWine did not restore the Parks and Recreation budget – and may not have been able to. Governors cannot add to items in the state budget bill they get from the legislature – they can only remove items. (We as citizens are still learning the intricacies of how the budget process works.) But DeWine may have done what he could.

Besides cutting the Parks and Recreation budget and making up the difference with fracking money, the legislature’s budget bill also would have required that budget to cover costs for dredging projects at Lake Loramie, Grand Lake St. Marys, and Indian Lake.

Dredging projects have their own line item in the budget. DeWine’s veto means that the cost of these projects will be paid from the Waterways Safety Fund, not the Parks and Recreation fund, as is normally done.

Unfortunately the Parks and Recreation fund will now be 50% dependent on fracking revenue in 2026, and 13% dependent in 2027. But it won’t be forced to cover almost $1 million in state dredging projects as well.

Thank you for your advocacy

Your work in advocating for DeWine to veto the worst oil and gas items in the state budget bill made a difference. Make no mistake, overall this is still a bad bill. But this time the oil and gas industry did not get a bevy of special favors that legislators inserted into the budget for them.

Democracy is not a spectator sport, and we must continue to engage in future bills and future budgets. This time, we were able to get three bad provisions out by asking and several more beyond what we asked for. Your engagement made all the difference. Thank you.

Please stay in this fight with us. We need you.

Sincerely,

Cathy Cowan Becker
Save Ohio Parks

P.S. Notice our new spruced up logo at the top of this message? Say thanks to our summer communications intern Maeve Fellerhoff!