At a recent House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on energy expansion, Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) raised concerns about the U.S. Department of Energy awarding a whopping $200 million grant to a company with strong connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The congressman questioned why an American company wasn't chosen instead, urging closer oversight of government investments in foreign companies which may represent significant security threats.
The grant was provided as part of the DOE's effort to expand clean energy initiatives across the United States and provides support for research into renewable energy sources. However, this particular grant has been met with criticism due to its recipient having deep ties to the CCP, a major political adversary of the United States.
During his line of questioning, Griffith said, "Recently, the DOE (Department of Energy) awarded a $200 million grant to battery maker Microvast, even after the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that they were heavily dependent upon policies made by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) apparatus in China. Do our DOE officials do a decent job of vetting these, or do they just fill them out, and if they've got an address in Texas, that's good enough?"
Griffith's question was aimed at the Honorable Paul Dabbar, former Under Secretary for Science at the DOE, who said in response, "I can't exactly define what DOE did on the Microvast award, but as you correctly said, the company itself told the Securities and Exchange Commission it was a Chinese-controlled entity, and that it did not meet American accounting standards, and the Securities and Exchange Commission was looking at delisting them from the United States. Even though technically it was legally incorporated here, the vast majority of the operations were in China, by their own admission."
Dabbar expanded on that, later saying, "I think there are plenty of other...there are plenty of battery companies, and I'm not certain why awarding it to someone who self-admits that they're a Chinese-controlled entity...there's probably other ones in the United States to support."
President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funded a $200 million grant for energy projects as part of a larger $2.8 billion Department of Energy (DOE) grant program. More than 200 companies applied for DOE funding, with only 20 being selected to receive grants.
Dr. Wenjuan Mattis, Chief Technology Officer at Microvast, said: “We expect the safety advantages of our innovative, highly thermally stable polyaramid separators to transform high-energy lithium-ion battery development and drive significant value for the industry."
Microvast, a leading manufacturer of energy storage solutions, has announced that it will be investing in the construction of a new separator manufacturing facility in the United States. The new production site is set to develop groundbreaking separator technology that could revolutionize the electric vehicle (EV) market, by significantly increasing safety and battery life.
The Department of Energy recently confirmed that Microvast, a battery storage technology provider, is majority owned by U.S. shareholders and listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The company is headquartered in Stafford, Tex., but much of its operations are based in China. In recent years, the company has attracted attention from U.S. regulatory agencies due to its foreign operations.
A former DOE official told the Free Beacon in an interview, "The Biden appointees knew from the outset that because of China's aggressiveness in infiltrating U.S. energy and high-tech companies they were going to need to be extra vigilant about where these [infrastructure] funds went. A simple Google search shows enough of a relationship between China and the shell company they're using to access U.S. taxpayer funds to raise questions."
