A year after US Steel was sold, communities push for clean investment

A year after Japan's Nippon Steel bought U.S. Steel for $14 billion, communities in northwest Indiana are still waiting to see the investment pay off in cleaner, more modern steel mills. The region's mills, some running since 1908, make steel for cars, appliances, and other goods, but rely on coal-fueled furnaces that pollute the air and water while the workforce has shrunk from about 65,000 jobs in the 1970s to roughly 9,000 today.

Other foreign steelmakers are also moving into the U.S., partly because of tariffs on imported steel. Korea's Posco is in talks with Cleveland-Cliffs, which owns two other Indiana mills, and is investing in a new steel plant in Louisiana. U.S. Steel is spending $1.9 billion on a new iron-making plant in Arkansas that uses natural gas instead of coal, a method that cuts emissions roughly in half compared with traditional blast furnaces. An even cleaner option, making iron with renewable-powered hydrogen instead of gas, exists but hasn't been widely built yet anywhere.

Local advocates want Nippon Steel and other companies to bring these lower-carbon methods to Indiana's aging coal furnaces, arguing it would cut pollution and keep the mills competitive as the industry shifts. Without that upgrade, a local advocacy group has warned the mills could become uncompetitive and close by the 2040s. For homeowners, this isn't about a specific rebate or upgrade, but about whether industrial pollution and jobs in steel regions like northwest Indiana change in the years ahead.