Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio has been bucking his Democratic colleagues on energy and climate change with increasing frequency as he tries to hold his seat in a tough reelection fight.
In the past 18 months, Brown has voted or taken positions contrary to Democrats’ and President Joe Biden’s agenda on matters like electric vehicle sourcing, energy efficiency regulations, greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other major matters.
That comes even though Brown has previously praised the far-left Green New Deal (though he did not cosponsor it) and supported Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas export facilities.
The positioning could help put distance between Brown and Biden as he faces off against Republican businessman Bernie Moreno in a state that hosts a massive manufacturing presence and has become increasingly Republican.
Brown has finished ahead of Democratic presidential candidates in his recent elections, including in the 2018 campaign in which he beat Republican Jim Renacci by more than 6 percentage points. This may be Brown’s toughest race yet, though a recent poll commissioned by AARP shows him with a 4-percentage-point lead over Moreno.
Brown defended his votes, saying in an interview he’s been consistent in fighting for his state’s priorities, no matter whether he’s running for reelection or not. “I look at each one case by case, regardless who the president is,” he told POLITICO’s E&E News.
But Republicans argue that Brown is trying to run from his record of extreme positions, and that voters “will not be fooled,” as a spokesperson for Moreno put it.
According to an analysis by E&E News, Brown has taken votes or announced positions contrary to Biden’s energy and environment agenda more than a dozen times since the election cycle started in the beginning of 2023. That’s in contrast to some previous years, when he’s enjoyed a perfect score from the League of Conservation Voters.
Thumbs-down for EV actions
One area where he’s broken with Democrats with increasing frequency has been on EVs, including regulations and implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act.
He’s promised to vote to overturn the Treasury Department’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s changes to the EV tax credit, voted to overturn EPA’s tailpipe emissions rule for vehicles and voted against the administration’s sourcing requirements for EV charging equipment.
The EV tax credit rule did not do enough to crack down on graphite imports from China, Brown argued at the time.
“Ohioans in Appalachia are pioneering exciting work to turn coal into graphite that could be used in these batteries,” he said. “We cannot allow Chinese companies, controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, to use our tax dollars to stop this work in Ohio before it gets off the ground.”
Brown also advocated against a minerals-focused trade deal with Indonesia that could open the country’s imports to EV tax credits.
He’s backed overturning EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations for power plants. “This is an unrealistic, unachievable rule that could undermine grid reliability, cause job losses for energy workers, and raise energy costs for Ohioans,” he said.
Brown and some colleagues criticized the administration’s proposed standards for the clean hydrogen tax credit, saying they would undermine the growth of the hydrogen industry.
Sometimes, his advocacy has helped shape rules to be less of a burden for industry, like the Energy Department’s efficiency standards for grid transformers and EPA’s pollution rules for steel plants.
Data about Brown’s voting patterns shows a recent separation from Biden. He went from voting with the Biden administration’s priorities 99 percent of the time in 2021 and 2022 to 94 percent in 2023 and 93 percent so far in 2024, according to data compiled by CQ Roll Call.
This year, he’s voted against Biden more frequently than all but six Senate Democrats, CQ Roll Call data shows, compared with being tied for the 28th spot in 2022.
His environmental voting record has fallen, too. He scored 100 percent on the LCV’s National Environmental Scorecard in 2021. But that dropped to 96 percent in 2022 and 88 percent in 2023, his lowest since 2014.
‘I’ve been consistent’
In an interview, Brown pushed back on the idea that anything had changed, pointing to a longtime liberal record on priorities like trade and the environment.
“I’ve spent most of my career looking at trade or environment through the eyes of employment in my state,” he said. “If it’s increased recently, that’s just by chance, because I’ve been consistent … regardless of election year, regardless of any time.”
Brown also pointed to Ohio-specific priorities in his actions.
For example, after the Energy Department changed its transformer rule, an action that Brown had urged DOE to do, Cleveland-Cliffs announced last month that it would bring a recently idled plant back online. The plant will employ as many as 600 people to build transformers. And while it is located in Weirton, West Virginia, it lies just across the Ohio border, and many of its former workers lived in the state.
Similarly, Brown argued that he saved American jobs by successfully pushing EPA in April to change its regulation on single-use cylinders for refrigerants in a way that helped Ohio-based Worthington Enterprises, which is the sole domestic producer of the cylinders.
“It might have very incrementally made the air a little cleaner here, but if the jobs went to China, it would go much more the other way, because of the way the Chinese are producing stuff,” Brown said of the cylinder rule.
Brown said his decisions aren’t about his reelection, but he’s also confident he’s going to beat Moreno and do better in Ohio than Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee.
“The reason I’m going to run well ahead of [Harris] is people know I stand up regardless of who the president is on issues that matter for jobs in my state. … It’s who I am, and it’s what people at home recognize.”
His voting record hasn’t alienated his environmental allies. LCV’s advocacy arm backed Brown a year ago in its first round of endorsements for the 2024 election.
“Sen. Brown has been a longtime champion for our environment and clean energy, and reelecting him is one of our top priorities,” said Craig Auster, LCV’s vice president for political affairs.
“We have been proud to partner with the senator to bring clean energy manufacturing jobs back to Midwestern states like Ohio and create good-paying, union, family-sustaining jobs,” Auster said.
‘Ohioans … will not be fooled’
Whether it’s for the election or not, Brown’s votes can help shape his independent image in the race against Moreno, said David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron.
“Sherrod Brown has always been able to portray himself as a pretty independent political operative,” Cohen said.
“I’m not surprised at all by some of the positions he’s taken,” he said. It goes right in line with his political philosophy. If it’s anything that’s going to potentially hurt American workers, especially in the manufacturing sector, he’s going to either be against it or he’s going to take a real hard look at it.”
Republicans have faced a conundrum recently on both Brown and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the latter of whom is similarly facing a tough reelection fight.
While the GOP has tried to push through messaging legislation attacking the Biden administration’s energy and environmental policies, they’ve also given vulnerable Democrats a chance to differentiate themselves from the president.
And while Republicans are making it a priority to tie Brown to Biden, the senator’s record can blunt that attack, Cohen said. “I think it’s a fool’s errand, because Ohioans are well-acquainted with Sherrod Brown.”
Moreno’s campaign said Brown can’t run from his record supporting Biden and Harris.
“Since this administration took office, Sherrod Brown rubber-stamped the Biden-Harris environmental agenda that pushed radical EV mandates and green energy schemes on Ohio families that will cut hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs in the auto industry,” Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy said in a statement.
“Now that it is an election year, Brown is trying to run away from his own voting record. Ohioans know he stood with the Biden-Harris administration nearly 100% of the time and will not be fooled.”
Philip Letsou, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, pointed to Brown’s previous support for the Green New Deal, as well as more recent support for Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas exports.
“No one is buying Sherrod Brown’s charade that he’s standing up for Ohio energy workers after he praised the Green New Deal and supported Joe Biden’s devastating LNG export ban. To make matters worse, Brown just endorsed Kamala Harris, who has repeatedly pledged to ban fracking and offshore drilling nationwide,” Letsou said.
Brown in 2019 said, “I support a green new deal,” but did not cosponsor or vote for it. Harris once endorsed a hydraulic fracturing ban, but her campaign recently said she no longer favors one.
Clarification: An earlier version of this story was imprecise about Sen. Sherrod Brown’s position on the Green New Deal. He praised it but did not cosponsor it.
