MIDDLETOWN — Vice President JD Vance was in the Miami Valley today.
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News Center 7’s John Bedell has spent the day in Middletown. He’ll have the latest on the announcement and more from the Vice President’s remarks tonight on News Center 7 at 5:00 and 6:00.
He was touting a half-billion-dollar investment from the federal government.
The money will help one of Middletown’s largest employers with an expansion project.
As Vance addressed a crowd, including workers, at Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works facility, he announced a $500 million federal grant.
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The money will go toward the steel plant where he says his grandfather retired from.
“I look at what you all are wearing, and I remember my Papaw going to work in an outfit not all that different and coming to this very place to work for nearly 40 years as a welder,” Vance said.
Cliffs has been pushing for a big expansion and improvement project at the plant where it produces automotive-grade steel in this part of Butler County.
The federal grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will cover half the cost of that investment.
“Our Department of Energy’s partnership with this fantastic company, Cleveland Cliffs, to invest a (combined) billion dollars to make this the best steel plant on planet earth,” Chris Wright, U.S. Secretary of Energy, said.
The company is covering the other half with its own money.
Cleveland-Cliffs leadership said that, at peak construction, the project will employ 1,500 construction workers and, when it’s finished, will preserve more than 2,300 jobs at the steel plant.
“With this investment, we’re going to be here in Middletown, by far, the best automotive grade plant in the world,” Lourenco Goncalves, Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman and CEO, said.
Cliffs’ expansion work depends on regulatory approval from the Ohio EPA.
An Ohio EPA spokesperson said Friday the agency is currently reviewing comments it got during the public comment period for the air permit required for the work.
And added, “We expect to make a final determination on the pending permit within the next few months.”
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