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For Immediate Release
November, 19 2014, 03:15pm EDT
Contact:
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio: Kellie Copeland, kellie@prochoiceohio.org, 330.524.1577
NARAL Pro-Choice America: Christina DiPasquale, christina@fitzgibbonmedia.com, 202.716.1953
Rick Hodges' Confirmation to Head Health Department Puts Lives at Risk
OHIO
Today, the Ohio Senate voted 24-8 to approve the nomination of Rick Hodges to lead the Ohio Department of Health. NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio opposed the confirmation of Hodges, as his experience fails to meet the minimum qualifications as stipulated under the Ohio Revised Code (section 121.10), and released the following statements:
Said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio:
"Governor Kasich couldn't find a qualified medical professional willing to continue his regulatory witch-hunt against abortion providers and family-planning clinics, so he appointed Rick Hodges, a political operative who does not meet the legal requirements for the position, to be his new hatchet man. Now the Ohio Senate has rubberstamped Kasich's pick, which will no doubt allow the politicization of this agency to continue.
"Hodges will be making critical decisions about whether abortion clinics will remain open, and whether our residents have access to the comprehensive medical care they need, despite the fact that he is neither a doctor nor a scientist. Unfortunately that means that the health and well-being of Ohio's women is in jeopardy."
Said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America:
"A majority of women across the nation have said over and over that politicians have no place interfering in their private medical decisions. That includes impeding their access to preventive care, birth control, and their right to safe and legal abortion care. By nominating an unqualified candidate to green-light increasing anti-choice restrictions, Governor Kasich will torpedo his own presidential ambitions.
"The confirmation of Rick Hodges is a huge step backward and is an assault on the rights of Ohio women by politicians pushing their personal ideologies. We insist on the appointment of qualified men and women for posts in charge of public health decisions and safeguarding the programs that keep our families safe. We demand accountability for anyone who puts partisan politics over sound public policy."
During the floor debate, State Senator Nina Turner said, "The people of Ohio deserve to have a leader who understands the decisions they are making." State Senator Tom Sawyer discussed his unsuccessful effort to convince Governor John Kasich to move Hodges to a management position and move a physician to serve as the director.
The last state budget limited funding for family-planning providers and gave the Ohio health director unprecedented powers in the licensing of abortion providers. Abortion clinics across the state have satisfied the necessary licensing requirements, but unlike other medical providers who seemingly have no difficulty obtaining licenses, no abortion clinics have received a license renewal. Ohio remains at risk of losing every abortion provider in the western half of the state.
Pro-choice advocates in Ohio and across the nation spoke out against this unqualified nominee, 1,011 Ohioans contacted their state senators and 27,034 Americans across the country signed a petition opposing Hodges nomination.
For interviews with NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, please contact Kellie Copeland at kellie@prochoiceohio.org or 330.524.1577.
For interviews with NARAL Pro-Choice America, please contact Christina DiPasquale at Christina@fitzgibbonmedia.com or 202.716.1953.
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
202.973.3000LATEST NEWS
Alarmed by 'Rapid, Largely Unregulated Rise' of AI Data Centers, 500+ Groups Demand Congress Pass Moratorium
The coalition called for a nationwide ban "until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment, and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting."
Jun 11, 2026
Over 500 organizations representing millions of people across the United States wrote to Congress on Thursday to call for "a national moratorium on the approval and construction of new data centers," warning that "the rapid, largely unregulated rise" of such projects already threatens "Americans' economic, environmental, climate, and water security."
"The rapid expansion of data centers across the United States, driven by the generative artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto boom, presents one of the biggest environmental and social threats of our generation," the groups wrote. "This expansion is rapidly increasing demand for energy, driving more fossil fuel pollution, straining water resources, and raising electricity prices across the country."
"All this compounds the significant and concerning impacts AI is having on society, including lost jobs, social instability, and economic concentration," the letter notes. "We urge you to join our call for a national moratorium on new data centers until adequate regulations can be enacted to fully protect our communities, our families, our environment, and our health from the runaway damage this industry is already inflicting."
While the letter doesn't name any specific legislation, it came just a few months after a pair of progressive powerhouses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), announced the Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act, a first-of-its-kind federal bill that would prohibit new construction until a range of safeguards are in place.
Thursday's letter was facilitated by the advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW)—a key backer of that bill—and signed by hundreds of other national, regional, and state organizations, including Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Constitutional Rights, Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace USA, Honor the Earth, Oil Change International, Our Revolution, People's Action Institute, Popular Democracy, Third Act, Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, and more.
"The large and surging national movement to rein in runaway data center build-out was born at the grassroots level, with concerned residents in countless communities across the country reacting to the real harms and hazards this industry brings wherever it lands," said FWW organizing director Emily Wurth in a statement. "We are following their lead, working at the local, state, and federal levels to support these fights and halt Big Tech in its tracks."
In addition to unveiling the letter to Congress on Thursday, the groups announced the Stop Data Centers Coalition. Wurth declared that "the time is right for a national coalition to lift up state and local fights, and drive a national agenda that will allow stakeholders to properly consider not how, but if this industry can operate in a responsible, sustainable manner."
📣 BIG NEWS 📣 Today we’re launching the Stop Data Centers Coalition – a group of advocacy organizations fighting Big Tech’s unregulated data center frenzy. Learn more about the coalition, explore helpful resources and learn how you can plug in here: https://fwwat.ch/datacentercoalition
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— Food & Water Watch (@foodandwater.bsky.social) June 11, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Paco Fabián, deputy director at Our Revolution, said that his organization "is proud to help launch this coalition because a moratorium is necessary to ensure transparency, accountability, and community input before more energy-intensive projects move forward and lock us into decades of higher costs and greater climate risks."
The coalition and letter announcements followed US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator (EPA) Lee Zeldin's saying at the Politico Energy Summit on Wednesday that he would not set national requirements for data centers.
"Ten times out of 10, I'm not going to sit inside of an agency building in Washington, DC, and that we say that we know that local community in Georgia or Florida or Arizona or elsewhere, better than everyone there locally," Zeldin said, as polling demonstrates the unpopularity of data centers and people in communities across the country—including from Monterey Park, California and Seattle, Washington just this month—come together to block new projects.
Responding to Zeldin's remarks, Clara Vondrich, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen's Climate Program, said in a statement that he "just gave Big Tech the green light to build data centers that will consume massive amounts of power and water without any enforcement by the EPA. He says he won't meddle in community affairs, but his inaction dooms communities to higher asthma rates, noise and light pollution, and new fossil fuel infrastructure the climate can't afford."
"Once again, the administration is dangerously out of touch with the needs and wants of the American people: A majority of registered voters oppose building data centers in their local area, and 6 in 10 think that if a data center opened in their local area, their electricity bills would increase," Vondrich continued. "Yet the administration insists on enabling Big Tech companies in the race to be first and fastest, cosigning their reckless build-out of behemoth AI data centers with a combination of gas, diesel, and even coal."
"Zeldin is right that we should follow what communities want. And that's clear: no dirty data centers near their homes, schools, parks, and playgrounds," she added. "Big Tech executives have lobbied hard to ingratiate themselves into the Trump administration's orbit... Zeldin made clear that their investment was money well spent."
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"Solar is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable," said Rep. Jared Huffman. "Trump needs to end his war on clean energy and get on board with what’s best for America."
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Since taking office 16 months ago, President Donald Trump has gone to extreme lengths to try to reverse the undeniable trend in the direction of solar power and away from expensive, planet-heating coal—but two new reports reveal how, despite Trump's relentless efforts, Americans are using renewable solar energy to power their homes and businesses more than ever.
The global energy think tank Ember revealed Wednesday that in May, for the first ever, solar supplied more of the United States' electricity than coal, at 12.8%. Coal dropped to its fourth-lowest point last month, delivering just 12.2% of electricity. Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in May, behind gas and nuclear power.
The previous month, coal hit an all-time low, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration analyzed by Ember.
Another report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the analytics firm Wood Mackenzie found that solar and battery storage accounted for 91% of all new energy generation capacity in the first quarter of 2026.
The news comes a week after Trump announced $700 million in new funding for the nation's coal industry, some of which is planned for the building of two brand-new coal-fired plants, which would be the first to be built in the US in 13 years.
US Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) compared Trump's latest effort to "lighting $700 million taxpayer dollars on fire," but emphasized that "the proof is there."
"Solar is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable," he said. "Trump needs to end his war on clean energy and get on board with what’s best for America."
Last week's announcement is one of numerous steps Trump has taken to prop up coal, one of the fossil fuels that scientists warn are heating the planet and increasingly causing destructive extreme weather events.
In February the president ordered the Pentagon to sign taxpayer-funded contracts with coal plants that otherwise would have been retired in the coming years, to provide electricity to military installations.
The Department of Energy also pledged $625 million to "expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry," an effort that has run into opposition even from the industry itself. In Colorado, two utilities, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority, which co-own a coal-fired plant the administration has demanded stay in operation, filed a petition earlier this year asking the DOE to allow them to close the facility, saying they've built solar and wind farms and that being forced to buy coal and maintain the plant amounts to a violation of the US Constitution's takings clause.
While demanding that coal production continues, Trump has taken direct aim at the booming solar industry—canceling projects and terminating $7 billion in funding for an affordable renewable energy program.
On the online news show "Breaking Points," Ryan Grim noted that solar and wind power surged in the first quarter before Trump joined Israel in waging war on Iran, a decision that sent oil prices skyrocketing.
"I would imagine the second quarter is going to see 98%" of energy generating capacity coming from solar power, said Grim.
Despite the political attacks and regulatory slowdowns... solar and storage were still 91% of all new grid capacity added in Q1.
Why? "Because solar is cheaper."
Breaking Point's @RyanGrim and @emilyjashinsky explain👇 pic.twitter.com/lhppEVqAR1
— Solar and Storage Industry (@SEIA) June 11, 2026
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"The deaths of Aditya Sharma, Shivanand Chaurasiya, and Patnala Suresh are a painful reminder that seafarers continue to bear the human cost of conflicts in which they have no stake," said the Forward Seamen's Union of India.
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Indian government officials and the country's largest sailor's union issued statements Thursday condemning a US strike that killed three Indian nationals on a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Oman earlier this week.
The Forward Seamen's Union of India warned that the "gruesome" attack on the Settebello, as well as other strikes on Indian-crewed vessels this week, demonstrates "the alarming deterioration of safety and security in one of the world's most important maritime corridors and exposed thousands of seafarers to unacceptable risks."
"The deaths of Aditya Sharma, Shivanand Chaurasia, and Patanala Suresh are a painful reminder that seafarers continue to bear the human cost of conflicts in which they have no stake," said the union's general secretary, Manoj Yadav. "Their sacrifice must not be forgotten, and their deaths must lead to concrete action to improve the protection of maritime workers everywhere."
Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesperson for India's foreign ministry, said in response to the US tanker strikes that "these attacks must cease."
"We also call for dialogue and diplomacy so that we can have an early return to peace and stability in the region," said Jaiswal, who noted that India's government registered its "strong protest" with a US diplomat.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement Thursday that it has "disabled" three oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman this week, accusing the vessels of violating a US blockade on Iran that experts say is illegal under international law.
CENTCOM claimed that the Palau-flagged, Indian-crewed Settebello "attempted to transport Iranian oil" and "repeatedly failed to comply with directions from American forces" on Tuesday. In response, according to CENTCOM, a US aircraft "fired precision munitions into the ship’s engine room," killing three Indian nationals.
CENTCOM did not mention any casualties in its statement.
"More victims of an illegal war," Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote in response to news of the deadly US strike, which came amid the Trump administration's broader assault on Iran that has killed thousands of people, hurled the Middle East into turmoil, and sparked global economic chaos.
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