Remarks as Delivered by Secretary Granholm at an Announcement Event for the Industrial Demonstrations Program

Thank you, Jon [Giltrow], so much for that great introduction, knowing that your whole family– this is a family operation, for generations.  

It’s in your DNA, and I bet you’re not the only one whose father worked here, or whose grandfather may have worked here, right? How many of you are more than one generation in this plant?  

Okay, that’s just amazing. And awesome. And we’re going to continue. You want your kids and grandkids to be able to produce steel in America as well.

[Applause] 

Right?  

I was looking at Wikipedia, I think I got this right, but I may have gotten it wrong—was this mill founded in 1899?  

Yes? 1899. Man.  

Mills like this one aren’t just employers—they’re anchors. They are embedded so deeply in the community. 

Over the last century or more, you could judge, probably, the strength of the Middletown economy based on whether the flame above the mill was burning.  

When the flame was lit, workers were producing steel... for early Oldsmobiles during the second industrial revolution… for tanks during World War I… for bridges, appliances, cars, all sorts of products.  

Workers like Jon, his dad and his granddads—three generations, really building American history here.  

It’s so amazing. 

In the ’70s and ‘80s, you know, American steel overall faced this crisis of offshoring. Armco, the owner of the Middletown mill, announced it was going to close up shop and lay off thousands of workers.  

Yes, our steel was the best—but China’s was the cheapest. Right? 

I am the former governor of Michigan, and I was governor during the Great Recession.  

And before, when all of these jobs went overseas, these CEOs were looking for ways to reduce costs. I don't know if you remember Jack Welch—who was the head of GE—once famously said he wished he could put his plants on barges and move them to where labor was cheapest.  

You know, so-called “free trade” and “trickle-down economics.” “Laissez-faire.” They ushered in the losses, for America, of millions of jobs. Tens of thousands of factories across this country closed up, because we were just sitting back and watching all these factories go overseas that we as a nation were not doing anything about. We didn't intervene to say, “We’ve got to be making stuff in this country.” 

You know– this is not an abstraction for me, anyway, because it was the most despairing part of my years as governor.  

Looking into the eyes of too many workers who found themselves out of work through no fault of their own. And I can't really describe the pain and sense of abandonment that people were feeling in those eyes. I can only say that I'm never going to forget it.  

And for those of you who know people who lost their jobs during that period of time, you know how desperate that is for a family who lost their main source of income. 

Offshoring softened our nation's manufacturing backbone. And then countries like China came in and stomped on it, poaching our intellectual property or jobs. 

But. 

Enter my boss, Joe Biden. We, he, is overseeing a strategy to build and bring manufacturing back to the United States.  

We’re talking about historic incentives. This Invest in America agenda, this is about [keeping] mills like this here, making sure you’re competitive and able to produce the best steel, that’s most in demand around the world, in America. Partnering, bringing back supply chains, ensuring that our businesses can stay ahead of the global competition. 

I must say, this agenda, the bills that were passed a couple of years ago, supported by Senator Sherrod Brown, supported by Representative Marcy Kaptur—you've got some amazing people who shaped these bills to ensure that Ohio, that Cleveland-Cliffs, was going to succeed. Thinking about industrial strategy. 

Consumers and companies around the world are demanding cleaner, greener products—made with less pollution, made with recycled materials, built to last. That’s happening all over the world. 

And we, as a nation, now are specifically investing to decarbonize these energy-intensive industries like steelmaking, where we can have the greatest impact. Iron as well, aluminum, cement, concrete, chemicals, food and beverages, pulp and paper processing, are all really energy intensive. 

Together, these industries, the heavy industry sector of America’s economy, emit about a third of our carbon pollution.  

Communities like Middletown—home to industrial facilities—get the benefit of these jobs, but many can feel those emissions acutely. In some areas of the country where there’s really a concentration of industrial processes, there is a huge amount of asthma, there is polluted water. And so, there's an issue about how communities can benefit from industrial decarbonization and cleaner processes as well. 

So, as we embark on this mission to revitalize American manufacturing, we don’t want to just make the best products in the world—and we will—we want to make the best and cleanest products in the world.  

We want to make those products here. 

We want to stamp them Made in America. 

We want to use them here. 

We want to export them across the world. 

This is who we are. We are American.  

And we are proudly building these with American workers. And that's what we're going to be doing into the future. 

So today, I am thrilled to announce the largest single industrial decarbonization investment in American history. Right here. 

[Applause] 

The single largest! Ever!  

And it’s not just you. The Department of Energy, we have selected 33 demonstration projects—from Kentucky to California, from Texas to Tennessee, from Minnesota to Middletown, Ohio—to receive, collectively, $6 billion in federal funding. When you factor in the companies’ share of this, it's a $20 billion investment in industrial decarbonization in America. 

These projects are going to slash our emissions by 14 million metric tons per year. They are replicable. They are scalable. What you do here in Middletown, we'll be looking at how we can replicate that in places all across the country. 

Just a couple highlights.  

In Ravenswood, West Virginia, Constellium is going to deploy a first-of-its-kind zero-carbon aluminum manufacturing casting plant, installing low-emission furnaces that can operate on a range of clean fuels, including hydrogen. I know that sounds a bit familiar. 

Kraft Heinz will upgrade, electrify, and decarbonize food production at ten facilities nationwide, including a site here in Ohio—Fremont—where they make ketchup and mayo and A1 sauce. 

It takes a whole lot of heat to make that sauce, so it produces a whole lot of emissions. They're going to be deploying technology like heat pumps, electric heaters, and electric boilers to slash those emissions 99 percent.   

And, of course, right here in Middletown, Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs is going to retire a blast furnace and install two electric furnaces—which will be the largest in the world.

[Applause] 

Amazing. 

Importantly—right, Shawn [Coffey]?—it also means 170 new jobs at this facility. 

[Applause] 

1,200 union construction jobs at this facility! 

[Applause] 

In addition, of course, to the 2,500 jobs that already exist, the vast majority represented by IAM.  

All 33 of these projects are going to maintain tens of thousands of good-paying jobs nationwide…  

Jobs that people want to get... 

Jobs that people want to grow in…  

Jobs that parents want for their kids…   

Jobs that fuel our economy…  

And jobs that anchor communities like Middletown, and keep generations employed.   

We want to make sure that every worker has the opportunity to build a lasting and fulfilling career like Jon has, and so many of you who are here. 

So, these projects look with clear eyes to the future.   

But they are rooted in the proudest moments of our past.  

Back in 1916, when World War I was going on, as it raged overseas, the Middletown mill sent out a pamphlet to workers. The pamphlet, in 1916, featured a poem by poet Walter Wintle. 

It reads, in part, that poem from 1916, it says: “If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. You’ve got to think high to rise.”   

Today, we face another industrial challenge—and we are thinking higher than ever before. 

We’re thinking cleaner. We’re thinking healthier.    

And together, we are rising.  

Middletown is rising. Workers are rising. Unions are rising.  

Love to see our union brothers here from the Butler plant, right?  

[Applause]  

Another beneficiary of this. 

And the flame of American manufacturing is blazing white-hot.  

And one of the great champions of American manufacturing is your CEO. I’m so pleased and proud to turn this microphone over to Laurenco Goncalves.