by WorldTribune Staff, February 19, 2024
Team Biden’s renewable energy scheme offers uncapped tax credits to firms investing in green energy.
It does not block foreign companies from accessing the pot of $1.2 trillion of U.S. taxpayer money.
China “has already planted its flag on a dozen green energy projects that could benefit from uncapped tax credits” and is set to “plunder $100 billion” of those funds, according to a Feb. 18 report by Daily Mail online.
Payday or payback? Some are referring to it as 10 percent from the “Big Guy.”
The green energy legislation being pushed by U.S. leftists is supposedly designed to improve American competitiveness in sectors that China currently dominates, including solar and electric vehicles.
“But experts are now warning it could in fact allow Chinese firms to ‘extend their global monopoly’ and ‘dominate’ the U.S. market,” the report said. “The issue has also divided once tight-knit communities across America as huge Chinese corporations land in their backyards, sparking environmental and security concerns.”
In passing Team Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Democrats hailed it as a significant step forward in combating climate change while reviving U.S. manufacturing. But critics point out that American firms can’t possible gain the upper hand if the Biden Administration allows Chinese firms access to the program.
The U.S. Treasury Department has said Chinese companies make up around 15 percent of all U.S. solar manufacturing investment following the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage.
A dozen projects in the U.S. with links to Chinese firms have already been launched. The Chinese firms would be eligible for billions of dollars of taxpayer funding designed to boost American manufacturing.
In Green Charter Township, Michigan, locals voted to overthrow the entire township board after it backed a proposal by Chinese Communist Party-linked firm Gotion to build a $2.4 billion EV battery plant in the township.
Last month, a joint House committee investigation found four “highly troubling” Chinese firms were behind another EV battery project in Michigan.
Jeff Ferry, chief economist at the non-profit Coalition for a Prosperous America, pointed out that a facility due to be built by Chinese firm Trina Solar in Wilmer, Texas, is projected to produce 5 gigawatts of energy per year.
In contrast, a plan for a solar plant in Providence, Rhode Island by Massachusetts firm Gridwealth has an estimated annual output of just 1.7 megawatts.
Ferry believes Chinese firms could plausibly replicate their current global market shares in solar (80 percent) and EV batteries (56 percent) if they are allowed unfettered access to the U.S. market.
If this was the case, he estimates more than $100 billion of US taxpayer money could be funneled to Beijing via the Inflation Reduction Act.
“Chinese companies have the ability to drive prices down and crowd out every American company,” Ferry said. “There’s a very real chance that 80 percent of the solar manufacturing capacity in this country in five to ten years will be Chinese-owned, unless they are excluded from this scheme.”
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