U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, can be forgiven for his enthusiasm over a recent report. After all, the good news being proclaimed by the Ohio Natural Energy Institute’s “The Essential Facts on Essential Ohio Energy” are a re-polished version of shiny proclamations we’ve been hearing for about 15 years.

Rulli was first elected to the state Senate in 2018. But well before that, organizations similar to the Ohio Natural Energy Institute were touting (then the Marcellus and Utica shales) as our region’s savior.

“Our region has been blessed with an extraordinary opportunity — one that could define our future for generations,” Rulli said just last week. “The oil and gas industry is a game-changer.”

Yes. We were told this was a generation-defining game-changer back then, too. And while there are lots of numbers for the authors of agenda-driven reports to throw around, we don’t have the full picture until we add some others.

For example, Belmont and Jefferson counties are first and second in the state for natural gas production. They have poverty rates of 13% and 19% and unemployment rates of 6.8% and 6.9%, respectively.

The national average poverty rate is approximately 11.1%. Unemployment nationally is 4.1%. What gives?

“(In) our own backyard, we have the power to fuel economic growth and create high-paying jobs for years to come,” Rulli said.

Maybe. But Ohioans have been given no reason to believe this year’s renewed cheerleading from industry groups is any different from earlier versions.

Something about the process is broken. Extraction industry corporations continue to profit from the billions of dollars worth of resources in Ohio without residents seeing the benefit they have been assured (over and over again) is just over the horizon. Rulli and others who understand the industry COULD be a game-changer for the Buckeye State had better get to work on figuring out how to make sure this time, it is.