Lawmakers propose replacing Ohio's lead pipes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio has one of the highest numbers of lead pipes in the nation, so lawmakers are trying to fix that; for some, it is personal.
'I didn't know that I was going to fight for my life and the culprit was lead, lead poisoning,' Ohio Rep. Dontavius Jarrells (R-Columbus) said.
Jarrells said when he was growing up, like for many families now, getting a glass of water at home was never a second thought.
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'Back then, I didn't know the name of this silent threat that invaded our home,' he said. 'I didn't know that it would show up in our doctor's office, I didn't know it would show up in my speech therapy class.'
But now, he said his story has given him purpose, to try and fight for other Ohio families and children.
'This is silently killing our children and futures of Ohio,' he said. 'Nearly 4,000 of Ohio's children are tested for high levels of lead poisoning, and the number is likely higher because of the reality that not every child in this state is tested.'
Ohio still has an estimated 745,000 lead water service lines, accounting for more than 8% of all lead pipes in the country. The state ranks third highest for the number of lead pipes, only behind Illinois and Florida.
That's why Jarrells and Ohio Rep. Monica Robb Blasdel (R-Columbiana) are sponsoring the Lead Line Replacement Act.
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'No amount of lead exposure is safe for our children,' Blasdel said.
The bill would mandate that local water producers work with the state to identify where the lead lines are and develop a plan to replace them. The bill adds a 15-year deadline to get all lead pipes in the state replaced.
'No more patchwork repairs, no more half fixes, no more kicking the can down the road,' Jarrells said. 'We're going to get this right for families and children.'
Annalisa Rocca, drinking water manager for the Ohio Environmental Council Action Fund, pointed out that for children under six, elevated levels of lead can cause impaired brain development and lower intelligence. But she said it doesn't only hurt children.
'Adults are more likely to experience increased risks of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and kidney and nervous system problems when exposed to lead,' Rocca said.
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Archie Beasley, program director of the Junction Coalition, said even the smallest amount of lead can have a huge effect.
'A pack of salt [worth of lead] can contaminate Ohio stadium,' he said.
'There's a lot more than just salt packets running through our water right now,' Jarrells said.
Replacing all the lead pipes in the state will not come cheap. Over the 15-year period, it is estimated to cost $5 billion to replace every single one. Jarrells and Blasdel said, though, for every $1 that goes towards replacing a pipe, the state will recoup $32 to $45 in public health outcomes and economic return.
'And over 15 years, this investment can grow Ohio's economy by more than $185 billion,' Jarrells said.
The price tag gives some leaders pause.
'A number like that means one of two things: it means a substantial tax increase some place or diminution of services on another side,' Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) said.
The sponsors said the plan is to pool resources that state already has, like federal dollars and the money in H2Ohio that is dedicated for lead pipe replacements, as a start. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine also pointed to H2Ohio and the work that has already gone into replacing lead pipes.
Bexley Library patrons compete for limited digital access amid increased demand
'Good, clean water is vitally important,' DeWine said. 'And we need to do as much as we can in that area.'
But H2Ohio faces an uphill battle right now. The program, created by DeWine, faces a cut in funding of nearly 50% during the next two years. DeWine said the potential cut concerns him.
'We need to keep moving on [lead pipe replacements], we need to be steady every single year and make progress in that regard,' DeWine said.
'We don't need another task force, we don't need another group of folks that come together and talk about this issue; we need action,' Jarrells said. 'This is something that needs to be done. This is not a vision for the future. This is necessary for the future.'
The bill must get through both the Ohio House and Senate. It awaits its first committee hearing.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Skiers Consider Boycotting Utah

As always, skiers on Reddit have all kinds of opinions, however wild they may or may not be. This week, r/skiing's keyboard warriors have decided to address the current reconciliation bill up for debate in the US Senate and the provision to it, which amongst other things, would mean the potential sale of a few million acres of US public lands. One particularly fired-up skier has taken to r/skiing to say that in light of the bill, Utah skiers should start boycotting the state. For context, the bill's provision that concerns the sale of public lands was published by the US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which is led by Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee."It's time to boycott Utah. Utah Sen. Mike Lee wants to sell millions of acres of public land. He needs to feel it where it hurts the most: his economy," the post by Reddit user Hobbitsliketoparty, is titled. Want to keep up with the best stories and photos in skiing? Subscribe to the new Powder To The People newsletter for weekly updates. The post details that, indeed, up to 3.3 million acres of US public lands would be sold across 11 western states, including Utah. In Utah specifically, this could include land near Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, Millcreek, Parley's, and more BLM land close to some of Utah's National Parks like Zion and Arches. Under the provision, National Parks, National Monuments, National Recreation Areas, components of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, National Wildlife Refuge System, National Fish Hatchery Systems, Wilderness Preservation Areas, and 'nearly every other protected designations,' would be excluded from the sale. Land sold under the bill would be for the purpose of building housing in order to ease housing shortages in the US. u/Hobbitsliketoparty has done their research, because they also state that 'but there's no requirement that the land be used for affordable housing. Developers and private buyers could snap up access points, trailheads, and wild spaces. That access could be gone for good.'The bill's provision has some vague language about proposals to purchase the land would need to include a description of how intended development would address local housing needs, including supply and affordability. However, there's no stipulation on holding the proposer to that once the sale is carried out. Considering Utah Senator Mike Lee's creation and support of the bill, u/Hobbitsliketoparty is proposing a boycott of funding to Utah's outdoor economy in protest. "If we let this happen, it sets a dangerous precedent. Politicians should not be allowed to auction off public land with almost no public input. And Utah has a history of this. From shrinking Bears Ears to resisting wilderness protections, they've been chipping away for years. If Utah's leadership insists on selling out our public lands, we should stop funding their outdoor economy. That means skipping the ski trips. Skipping the canyoneering. Skipping the visits to the Mighty 5. In 2017, Outdoor Retailer pulled its convention out of Salt Lake City after similar attacks on public land. It worked. Maybe it's time we acted again," reads the post. Several commenters point out and thank u/Hobbitsliketoparty for doing their research and reiterate the fact that while many of Utah and other state's ski areas are on public lands, often managed by USFS, the permits they operate on also exempt them from the sale. But that doesn't mean that trailheads and access points for other, non-inbounds skiing recreation wouldn't be threatened by the sale. It's hard to say whether boycotting skiing in Utah and the rest of its outdoor tourism economy would send the right message to Sen. Lee. For one, the Senate vote is slated to take place sometime in the next few weeks, which means, by the time ski season rolls around, there will already be a decision. Also, food for thought—boycotting Utah's outdoor tourism economy as a revenue source for the state would potentially fuel supporter's of the bill's fire by giving them more ammunition to sell off public lands. But I get it, u/Hobbitsliketoparty is angry like a lot of Americans right now about this potential attack on our public lands, but rather than boycotting a local tourism industry, the best course of action would be to call your local senators and let them know you oppose the bill, or use a handy form from an organization like the Outdoor Alliance or Protect Our Winters to do Consider Boycotting Utah first appeared on Powder on Jun 20, 2025

Yahoo

a day ago

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Big Tech promised jobs. Cities gave millions. Where are the workers?

Columbus, Ohio, escaped the Rust Belt rut years ago. Regional economic development officials offered incentives that attracted warehouses, manufacturing plants, and healthcare startups, reviving the economy and generating jobs. By 2018, hundreds of these deals over the previous eight years had created some 150,000 jobs. Central Ohio now hopes to repeat that success. It's betting big on "Silicon Heartland," a high-tech innovation hub that proponents hope will be flush with high-paying jobs. Economic officials have dangled multimillion-dollar tax subsidy packages before some of the world's biggest technology companies. The resulting investment, Gov. Mike DeWine promised, "further cements Ohio as the heart of our nation's technology and innovation." Mostly, they're getting data centers. Central Ohio has become one of America's hottest hubs for these computing warehouses, with companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, and QTS flocking there, lured largely by generous incentives. The problem: Data centers, which operate largely autonomously, don't produce many lasting full-time jobs. A Business Insider analysis of construction permits, economic development deals, and company disclosures found that even the largest data centers generally employ fewer than 150 permanent workers, and some have as few as 25. Building those data centers also creates significant numbers of construction jobs, but those are short term, sometimes lasting less than a year — far shorter than the duration of the tax breaks the companies get, which often last a decade or longer. That means the tax breaks given to developers can amount over time to more than $2 million for every permanent, full-time job at an operational data center, Business Insider's analysis found. That's roughly eight times higher than the $262,000 average per job that watchdog group Good Jobs First found in 18 economic development deals worth at least $50 million awarded in 2023. The number of jobs doesn't balance the cost, multiple economists and researchers who study tax subsidies told Business Insider — even factoring in the construction and other supporting roles that the tech industry uses to calculate its economic impact. Records show that the workforce on data center projects quickly tapers off, meaning industry estimates often significantly overstate long-term employment benefits. The costs to the public don't end with tax subsidies. Data centers drive up electricity costs for other ratepayers as utility operators invest billions of dollars in new grid infrastructure to support escalating power demands. That has drawn opposition from other companies including retail giant Walmart, which has said that surging electricity bills are imperiling its expansion in states such as Ohio and Virginia. Industry advocates argue the deals are worth it. "Each new data center built in Ohio spurs a significant boost in investment, revenue, and wages that flow to Ohio businesses and workers, stimulating the state's economy," Josh Levi, the president of the Data Center Coalition, an industry advocacy group, wrote in an August 2024 op-ed article published by In recent US congressional testimony, he cited an estimate that data centers in Central Ohio supported more than "10,000 construction jobs, 2,000 data center jobs, and hundreds of maintenance and retrofitting jobs last year." Drilling into the terms of specific economic development deals suggests a more complicated picture. In 2021, for example, Google entered into a much-celebrated deal with Columbus to construct a data center campus. The city offered a 100% property tax abatement worth an estimated $54 million in tax savings over 15 years. In exchange, the Google facility promised 20 full-time jobs at the data center, rising to about 40 jobs by 2047. Artificial intelligence is accelerating data center construction that already was growing quickly to power digital services from social media to medical care. In 2025 alone, Meta plans to spend at least $64 billion on facilities and equipment. Google's parent company, Alphabet, plans to spend $75 billion, and Microsoft said it would invest $80 billion. Tech companies say their investments will supercharge local tax revenues and high-paying jobs will drive economic growth. Even with tax breaks, data centers contributed $162.7 billion in federal, state, and local tax revenue in 2023, according to a February 2025 PwC report prepared for the Data Center Coalition. The industry, the report said, supported 4.7 million jobs directly at data centers or indirectly through their supply chain. Amazon, the biggest data center operator, calculates that its data centers each year have supported thousands of jobs, including 4,760 in Ohio and 19,110 in Virginia. Matt Hurst, a spokesperson for Amazon Web Services, Amazon's cloud-computing arm, told Business Insider the company was "proud of the good jobs we create, for the trust local communities invest in us, and for the opportunity we have to invest in those communities." Meta says that its data center operations support 16,000 jobs and $1.2 billion in labor income annually, and that it has backed 440,000 construction jobs over the past decade. Google says its data centers supported 119,000 jobs and contributed $12.6 billion to US gross domestic product in 2023 across its supply chain, including construction. Microsoft's website says its data centers generate "public infrastructure improvements and tax revenue that serve as a catalyst for enhancing the quality of life." "Our developments generate millions of dollars in tax revenue to support local priorities related to schools, roads, housing, and other critical needs, while also reducing the tax burden on residents," a spokesperson for QTS, which is owned by the investment firm Blackstone, said in a statement. A Blackstone spokesperson also highlighted the benefits of data center development and said the company was "proud that our investment in QTS provides the digital infrastructure critical to the future of our country and economy." Competition to score these promised benefits can be a race to the bottom, as developers pit state against state and city against city. New projects cluster in areas that offer the most competitive deals. To investigate how these incentive deals play out, Business Insider identified areas of data center development and filed requests with all 50 states and Washington, DC, for the air permits that regulate backup generators at every data center. Business Insider compiled records for 1,240 data centers nationwide, the most definitive accounting to date, and requested records of data-center-related economic incentives from municipalities and states. The largest data centers in Business Insider's analysis — the 322 massive facilities that we estimate consume 40 megawatts of electricity or more each — are heavily concentrated in a few places. Northern Virginia has 214, followed by Arizona's Maricopa County with 16, and Ohio's Columbus region with 9. Thirty-seven states have tax incentive programs for data center investments. Most exempt developers from sales and use taxes on building materials, machinery, or equipment — resulting in big hits to state coffers. In Virginia, 56 data center projects cost $928 million in abated state sales tax in the 2023 fiscal year alone. Disclosures in Ohio estimate it forfeited nearly $360 million in data-center-related state tax revenue from the 2022 through 2024 fiscal years. Mason Waldvogel, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Development, called the tax incentive program "a strategic tool used to create long-term economic growth by attracting high-value, capital-intensive projects." A spokesperson for the Data Center Coalition said state tax exemptions for data centers were consistent with programs for other capital-intensive industries. Cities also offer incentives, including breaks on property taxes and reimbursements for building fees. Arizona cities largely don't give property tax abatements but allow the use of precious water resources. Virginia grants access to enormous amounts of electricity and critical infrastructure but requires data centers to pay local property taxes. Indeed, Northern Virginia cities generate up to 31% of their total tax revenue from data centers, funding fire departments, affordable housing, and other services. In the Columbus region, Business Insider located 19 data center-related deals that, together with state-level abatements, amounted to at least $750 million in forfeited tax revenue for 770 full-time jobs employed at data centers as of December 2023. The jobs generally pay well, averaging $100,000 a year in Central Ohio, according to company disclosures. At the Google data center in Columbus, salaries range from $74,000 for a data center technician to $162,000 for an operations manager. Amazon tops the list with seven deals. In one, the northwest Columbus suburb of Dublin agreed to sell Amazon 66 acres, which the city valued at $100,000 an acre, for $1 in total. Amazon agreed to pay the farmers previously leasing the land up to $40,000 total to abandon their soybeans and corn crops and terminate the lease. It told Dublin it expected to hire 25 full-time workers by the end of 2018, a nonbinding projection. In contrast, Amazon projected that it would hire 1,000 Ohioans at a new fulfillment center in Canton several years later — without taking any local property tax abatements or state incentives. Amazon's Hurst said the company works hard to create every job it projects. The deals keep coming, from Batavia, New York, to Meridian, Mississippi. Nathan M. Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies regional tax incentive programs, said cities are better off sitting these deals out. Communities throw everything they can at tech companies, yet when the costs of lost tax revenue and escalating electricity prices are factored against what the communities get back in jobs, revenue, and prestige, "there's just no evidence that you're going to benefit from that data center," he said. If data center developers threaten to walk from cities that refuse to compete for these deals, Jensen's advice is blunt: "Let 'em walk." Jensen said data centers were shaping up like professional sports stadiums, where cities give millions in tax revenue savings in exchange for temporary construction jobs and minimal economic impact. Construction of data centers generally lasts one to two years, or sometimes longer, and many construction jobs run for only part of that period. In Virginia, one analysis found that about 80% of jobs from data centers created over a recent two-year period were in construction. And the numbers of such data-center-supported jobs cited in this year's Data Center Coalition report may be misleading, multiple economists and researchers who study incentives told Business Insider. Timothy Bartik, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a not-for-profit organization focused on reducing unemployment, said his own study suggests job numbers in the high-tech sector, like data centers, could be less than half of industry estimates. Microsoft estimated last year that a campus with six data centers that it is building outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, would have 1,005 jobs at peak construction, falling to 335 full-time employees and contractors by the end of next year. At a construction project in Columbus for the data center operator Cologix, one contractor, Baker Concrete Construction, had 63 people on payroll. Those jobs lasted an average of 6 ½ weeks. Cologix said that overall the site had an average of 146 workers during the project's construction. Incentive packages often spell out how many jobs a company commits to creating in exchange for its tax breaks. Data center companies generally commit to deliver only the jobs inside their facilities in exchange for their tax breaks — not the construction and other ancillary jobs they say their projects create. Based on what is actually promised in such deals, those jobs can be expensive for local governments. Business Insider identified five deals in Ohio where, as of December 2023, each long-term job in the data centers cost over $1 million in abated taxes over the life of the deal. An Amazon data center in Hilliard had saved at least $195 million in state and local taxes as of December 2023, according to annual disclosures, driving the price of each job to over $1 million in abated taxes. New Albany, Ohio, garnered 98 jobs at a Meta data center, but forfeited $189.6 million in state and local taxes as of the end of 2023 — making each job worth about $1.9 million in foregone tax revenue. "We disagree with this way of thinking about the benefits we bring to communities," Amazon's Hurst said, adding that it benefits communities in ways beyond direct job creation, such as spending with local businesses and funding job-training efforts. A Meta spokesperson said it helps communities where it operates through grants and partnerships. The Data Center Coalition spokesperson said that focusing on jobs inside data centers understates the impact on service providers and suppliers, such as electricians, HVAC manufacturers, and portable sanitation companies. Companies are still required to make yearly payments to the cities in lieu of property taxes to help ensure minimum contributions to the communities, which Business Insider incorporated into our cost-per-job calculations. Meta, for example, paid $21.8 million in total to New Albany as of December 2022. A spokesperson for New Albany said the payments ensure "data centers contribute meaningfully to the community, even with tax abatements in place." And tech companies often sweeten the deals by promising to invest in education programs to upskill local workers. Amazon, for example, donated $25,000 and some equipment two years ago to the Tolles Career & Technical Center in Plain City, Ohio, to support the school's IT and cybersecurity training programs, which include a four-week training program for entry-level data center workers. At the nearby Columbus State Community College, the company pledged $50,000 in scholarships for a new data center technician certificate program. The ultrapowerful computer chips crammed into data centers consume enormous amounts of power. A 2024 Department of Energy report estimates their electricity use, driven by the AI boom, could soon command as much as 12% of total US electricity use, from just over 4% in 2023. Data centers are getting breaks on that, too — which residents and other businesses are helping pay for. From 2020 through last year, Ohio data centers' load on the grid rose sixfold. By 2030, American Electric Power Ohio, the state's largest electricity provider, expects to grow by another 700% to reach 5,000 megawatts, enough to power at least 2 million homes. If all hookup requests across more than 90 planned data center sites in Ohio are approved, AEP Ohio told regulators, demand could skyrocket to over 30,000 megawatts. Since 2017, Ohio regulators have authorized multiple 10-year electricity rate subsidies for data center developers, reducing power costs for tech companies in exchange for their promises of new jobs. Other AEP customers have to pay for the shortfall. Matt Schilling, a spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, said in an email to Business Insider that while the commission had approved some discounted rates for data centers, it had denied other applications for such arrangements. At the same time, AEP has proposed spending at least $850 million in new or upgraded grid infrastructure and power plants to serve data centers, and another $350 million in other upgrades to support Central Ohio's extreme demand growth, according to filings. Ratepayers across Ohio foot the bill for this too, as AEP spreads the costs across all customers. Walmart, one of Ohio's largest employers, said last June that an increasingly expensive electricity bill — owing partly to data centers' demand — imperiled its continued expansion in the state. That warning came in a filing supporting the utility's recent proposition to increase tariffs and regulations on data center customers. A Data Center Coalition representative warned regulators in 2024 that those proposed tariffs and restrictions in Ohio could "depress the growth of an important emerging industry." The rate case remains ongoing. Regulators across the US have offered similar deals to subsidize data centers' electricity use, shifting billions of dollars of costs to all ratepayers, including residential customers. Regulators last year OK'd Georgia Power to construct an estimated $300 million 35-mile high-voltage transmission line and a new substation for a QTS data center near Atlanta. And this year, South Carolina regulators authorized Duke Energy to invest $66.5 million to upgrade a transmission line to serve a new QTS data center. The utilities will recoup their investments by increasing electricity bills for all their customers. Duke Energy said it follows federal rules in allocating upgrade costs. South Carolina's regulator declined to comment and Georgia Power and that state's regulator didn't respond. A QTS spokesperson said it pays for all utility infrastructure dedicated to its data centers "to ensure no impact to residential rates." "Utilities can fund discounts to Big Tech by socializing their costs through electricity prices charged to the public," a 2025 Harvard Law study of regulatory proceedings about utility rates for data centers found. Utilities profit, the study said, by "forcing the public to pay for infrastructure designed to supply a handful of exceedingly wealthy corporations." Amazon, Microsoft, and Google told Business Insider they were committed to paying their full share for infrastructure serving their power needs. Tech companies and industry advocates say that other factors, such as electric vehicles, also are driving electricity growth and that the transition to renewable power drives up electricity costs. To estimate the amount of power data centers demand nationwide, Business Insider used data from the air permits issued to data center backup generators. (See here for more on Business Insider's methodology.) If every data center that's been issued a permit comes online, Business Insider estimates data centers' total electricity use across the country could reach between 149.6 terawatt-hours and 239.3 terawatt-hours a year. Business Insider's low-end estimate is roughly equivalent to the state of Ohio's electricity needs in 2023, and on the high end, is nearly as much power as the entire state of Florida used that same year. A 2024 federal report estimated US data centers' electricity use could reach the high end of Business Insider's estimate by 2026. A 2024 report to Virginia's legislature found that data centers had historically paid their fair share of transmission upgrade costs but warned their sharply escalating electricity needs "will likely increase system costs for all customers, including non-data center customers." Last July, Dominion Energy, Virginia's largest utility provider, asked regulators to approve a $23 million grid infrastructure investment billed across ratepayers, a request that is still pending. Regulatory staff said the investment was likely needed just for a single data center customer. Months later, Dominion disclosed that it would need to roughly double its electricity generation by 2039 primarily to meet meteoric data center demand and new planned renewable energy capacity. Dominion estimates the planned expansion could cost up to $103 billion, increasing residential electricity bills by as much as 50%. Aaron Ruby, a Dominion spokesperson, told Business Insider that the company had asked regulators to approve additional consumer protections to shield ratepayers from shouldering costs incurred by large customers like data centers. The planned increase in power bills is primarily driven by the utility's transition to carbon-free power generation, as is required by state law, Ruby wrote. In Virginia, too, Walmart objected. "Electricity is a significant operating cost for retailers such as Walmart," Lisa Perry, Walmart's director of utility partnerships, told regulators in February 2025, warning that increasing electricity rates would harm Walmart's investment in Virginia. Andy Farmer, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Corporation Commission, said that data centers affected all the state's utilities, not just Dominion. Data centers' ballooning power consumption leaves other businesses, residents, and utility regulators in a bind: Either pay to expand capacity for the tech companies, or risk going without enough power to attract other new business. In Indiana, the River Ridge Property Owners' Association in Clark County told state regulators in 2024 that a single Meta data center project had bled nearly all remaining power from the grid. Meta promised at least 50 high-paying permanent jobs at the site and hundreds of construction jobs, but the community would have no available electricity to attract other prospective companies investing in the area for at least four years. "It is possible these data centers ultimately restrict, rather than foster, additional economic development," a representative of the Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a consumer and environmental advocacy organization, told state regulators. By 2030, the representative said, "just a few" data centers used for applications like AI will use "more electricity than all 6.8 million Hoosiers use at their homes." Walmart representatives told Ohio regulators last year that data centers' massive electricity use threatened the company's planned rollout of electric vehicle charging locations at its retail locations. "Growth in data center development is an economic boon for Ohioans," Google representatives told regulators this year, adding that the facilities were "pivotal in establishing the state as a leading technology hub." Walmart argues that it brings more jobs and other benefits to the local economy — a claim supported by research from AEP Ohio. The utility calculated that each megawatt allocated to traditional commercial and industrial customers like Walmart supported at least 25 jobs. Every megawatt used by a data center, the utility said, supports less than one job. About the data: Business Insider used air permits issued to data center backup generators to identify facility location and ownership, and estimate facility power use. We received permits from all but four states, plus Washington, DC. Read more about how we investigated the impact of data center growth here. Reporting: Hannah Beckler, Dakin Campbell, Daniel Geiger, Rosemarie Ho, Narimes Parakul, Adam Rogers, Ellen Thomas Editing: Jeffrey Cane, Rosalie Chan, Jason Dean, Esther Kaplan, Jake Swearingen Research: Darren Ankrom, Schuyler Mitchell, Trey Strange, Yuheng Zhan Design and visuals: Dan DeLorenzo, Isabel Fernandez-Pujol, Jinpeng Li, Kim Nguyen, Randy Yeip, Rebecca Zisser Photography: Kendrick Brinson, John David-Richardson, Greg Kahn, Brian Palmer, Jesse Rieser Video: Robert Leslie, Gary Moon, Marco Secci Copy editing: Mark Abadi, Kevin Kaplan Read the original article on Business Insider

The Onion

a day ago

• The Onion

Christian Faith An Important Part Of Who Senator Pretends To Be

WASHINGTON—Stressing that the facade informs nearly every aspect of his daily life, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told reporters Thursday that his Christian faith is an important part of who he pretends to be. 'Whether I'm delivering a speech calling for theocracy in front of dozens of cameras or talking to my children at the kitchen table about God's separate roles for men and women, I mean it when I say the mask I wear in public is the same one I wear at home,' said the 45-year-old lawmaker, who confirmed that Christianity has been the foundation of his public-facing identity ever since he was a shameless young prep school student with his sights set on Yale Law School. 'The power of telling people you pray is incredible. My Christian faith is a pretense that's only grown stronger as I've aged. It's so strong that, sometimes, I almost forget it's all an act.' At press time, Hawley added that he is grateful to represent all of his Christian constituents through the faith he uses as a guise to seek power.