Since its founding in 1975, Ohio Citizen Action has pioneered many of the approaches and techniques now widely followed by citizens groups across the nation. Our campaigns use the power of community organizing to convince major industries to prevent pollution at their facilities. Our handbook, “Good Neighbor Campaigns: How to Win” is used by citizens groups across the country and in Canada.

Over the past five years, we have made major strides in moving Ohio away from its reliance on dirty coal-fired power plants. Ohio has more toxic air pollution than any other state in the nation because of its high concentration of coal plants.  Our work has led to the cancellation of two proposed new coal plants – the American Municipal Power coal-fired plant and the Baard Energy “coal to liquids” plant on the Ohio River, followed by the recent announcements of the closures of four highly polluting FirstEnergy coal plants on Lake Erie, as well as two Duke Energy plants on the Ohio River and one American Electric Power plant in Southeast Ohio.  In Cincinnati we helped pass a November 2011 ballot initiative to form a municipal “public aggregation” buying group and then organized citizens to convince the City to shop for new contracts to provide renewable energy for city residents. We have worked with our allies in Appalachia to curb the heinous practice of mountaintop removal coal mining, and convinced Ohio State University President Gordon Gee to resign from the board of Massey Energy, a major mountaintop removal company.

Ohio Citizen Action is a vigorous defender of the First Amendment, and we are proud to announce that on February 2, 2012, we won a legal case that will have important repurcussions: a seven-year battle to overturn restrictions on door-to-door canvassing in Englewood, Ohio.  

We are known as the organization that “follows the money” in Ohio politics, with our landmark investigations of corruption and advocacy for open government and fair redistricting.

We are currently campaigning to prevent the City of Cleveland from building a new garbage incinerator, which would be a major source of air pollution in Cuyahoga County.  Hundreds of Clevelanders have turned out to public hearings in January and February to oppose the plant, urging the City to enact a full-scale recycling and composting program instead.