[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 20 (Tuesday, January 31, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S162-S164]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ENERGY POLICY

  Mr. MANCHIN. Mr. President, I saw some exciting news this morning, 
and it said that General Motors announced it is making a $650 million 
equity investment in Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass Mine 
in Nevada. Now, this has been talked about for 10, 12, 13 years, but it 
is time to do something.
  According to GM, this represents ``the largest-ever investment by an 
automaker to produce battery raw materials,'' and that is exactly what 
the Inflation Reduction Act was meant to do. It is a tangible result 
because of that, and now, we have to make sure we follow through.
  GM's CEO, Ms. Mary Barra, even said:

       Direct sourcing critical [electric vehicles] raw materials 
     and components from suppliers in North America and free-trade 
     agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, 
     helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs.

  This is really what we are dealing with. We are dealing with--
basically, China has a captive market. I had a hard time understanding 
why our administration was going down a path of transitioning into 
electric vehicles as quickly as they intended and wanted to do without 
having our own secure supply chain.
  China right now has 80 percent of the world's anode production, which 
is the positive and negative part of the battery that makes the battery 
work; 80 percent of the world's battery material processing, which is 
the processing of raw material that makes the batteries that run the 
vehicles we have; 60 percent of the world's cathode production; and 75 
percent of the world's lithium ion battery cells.
  I am old enough to remember--and maybe the Presiding Officer might 
be, too--that basically in 1974 I was standing in line waiting to buy 
gas, if it was my turn to buy gas, to go to work. I don't intend to 
stand in line to wait for China to send a battery to make my car work. 
I just won't do it. So this is why we are moving in the direction we 
are.
  China has worked long and hard on cornering this market and done a 
very, very thorough job.
  We have seen firsthand what Russia has done to the EU--to Europe, our 
allies--and most importantly, to Germany. They have used their 
production of energy--inexpensive, cheap energy--and let Europe and 
mostly Germany put their guard down and become totally dependent. Then 
Putin weaponized energy against them and put them in a heck of a 
stranglehold. Then basically decisions were being made about what they 
could do.
  Well, the first thing they did was basically eliminate their 
dispatchable, dependable fuel, whether it be the coal-fired plants, 
which they had a desire to do, but they actively worked quicker than 
they had anything to replace it with and became more dependent. They 
got rid of their nuclear plants because their extreme environmental 
community wanted none of that; they wanted to go absolutely clean and 
green.
  There will be a time probably--hopefully in our lifetime; maybe not, 
but in our children's lifetime--that all of this might be transitioned 
into a new carbonless fuel, but right now, we need an ``all of the 
above'' energy policy.
  But they became totally dependent on cheap Russian gas, and they 
realized only after the invasion that they had made a mistake. Well, 
now they are scrambling to revive the very same coal-fired powerplants 
they shut down prematurely and bring back the nuclear reactors that 
they are going to need for a while.
  People talk about the social cost of greenhouse gases, and I agree, 
there is a social cost, but we are not even talking about the 
geopolitical cost of inaction, being energy secure. That is really what 
this is all about.
  The Inflation Reduction Act that we worked so hard on and every 
Democrat voted for in the House and the Senate, as the Presiding 
Officer knows, has been touted as an environmental bill. That is all 
you have heard. You have not heard the word from our administration 
talking about energy security.
  The United States is the superpower of the world, and to remain that 
status, you have to have energy independence and be secure in your own 
energy sources.
  If you recall, when all this happened and the invasion of Ukraine by 
Putin and basically the challenge we had and the high rising of oil 
prices to gasoline prices to everyday workers going back and forth--in 
my State, there is an awful lot of transit that goes on to secure your 
jobs. What had happened during that period of time, our administration 
started saying: Well, maybe we can reduce the sanctions on Iran.
  I said: You have the most prolific terrorist supporters in the world, 
and you want to lift sanctions so they can put more product into the 
market and make more money or have more revenue to wreak more havoc on 
humankind? I don't think that should be, I don't think that is a good 
idea, and I sure can't sign up for something such as that.
  Then we allowed Venezuela, which basically has very little oversights 
on their environmental emissions--but we released that, and now they 
are putting product in the market.
  Now, if we are so concerned about the environment, which we all 
should be, then shouldn't we basically look at what is going on? Is 
America just turning a blind eye and saying: Out of sight, out of mind.
  We are asking other parts of the world to do what we won't do. We 
asked the Gulf States--Saudi Arabia--to produce more oil, put more oil 
into the marketplace, because that would stabilize the oil price, bring 
the price of gasoline down. We never asked our friends in Texas. We 
never asked our friends in Alaska. We never asked our best trading 
partner Canada to do more for us. We were seen asking other people--and 
pretty drastic measures, if you would, by other nations--to do 
something we didn't want to do for ourselves. I thought that was 
unattainable, it was just unrealistic, and it did not show the 
leadership of the superpower of the world.
  Again, I will repeat this, and I will continue to repeat it: You will 
not maintain this status of being a superpower unless our allies look 
to us for help when they need it. We didn't have the energy to even be 
independent ourselves, let alone be able to help our allies as quickly 
as they needed it. We are getting up to speed now, we are coming back, 
and that is exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act was intended to 
do.
  If we don't establish a domestic supply with the God-given resources 
that we have--we produce oil, we produce coal, and we produce natural 
gas environmentally better than anyplace else in the world. In the IRA, 
that bill was designed to have two tracks. For 10 years, we would have 
certainty that we would be energy independent by using everything 
above, and that means relying on the fossil fuels that we need, and we 
have, but we are going to do it better and cleaner than we have ever 
done it before. We put more money in carbon capture, sequestration, and 
utilization than ever before. We put more technology and fees on 
methane emission, which we know is harmful to the environment, than 
ever before. So basically we are leading the world and going to find 
the new technology we can share that makes the environment better. But 
if you can replace the dirty production of fossil with the cleaner 
production from the United States, that is

[[Page S163]]

truly helping the environment. It is something that the leaders and the 
superpower of the world should be doing. We weren't in that position. 
We are fighting to get back.
  But I have to watch now, after we passed a piece of legislation we 
all voted for--we are getting different interpretations from Treasury 
and other Agencies that have oversight, which is so wrong. That is not 
their job, to interpret what they want in a piece of legislation; their 
job is to basically enforce what we wrote in the legislation. And we 
said that we will be independent, that we will have our own supply of 
critical minerals. We will have our own supply, basically, and we are 
not going to have to depend on China for car batteries or anything else 
we need to run our economy. That is what we should be fighting for, and 
that is what we should all be considering that we should be doing.
  The IRA is crystal clear. What the Department of the Treasury did is 
wrong. The law was very clear. By December 31 of last year, 2022, they 
were supposed to have the rules and regulations of how they would 
enforce the bill that we wrote. Well, guess what. They didn't. Now, 
guess what happened.
  Let me explain to you how the law worked before. Before we did what 
we did with the IRA, the electric vehicles, the supplement that we 
gave, $7,500, from 2008 after the crash of the economy, the banking 
crash that we had--there was a bill passed in 2008, a recovery bill, 
that was going to give $7,500 credit to any manufacturer--I mean, any 
manufacturer--that sold an electric vehicle in the United States of 
America. Now, once they saturated and sold 200,000 cars, it was over; 
they got no more credits.
  So let's look at our big manufacturers in the United States. We have 
General Motors, OK, we have basically Ford, and we have Toyota. Let me 
just tell you what has happened. So we are going to set the record 
straight because I had a discussion with my dear friend and colleague 
from Michigan, the Senator from Michigan, and we talked about that, and 
I think there was some misinterpretation or misspeaking about what has 
really happened.
  As of last year, Tesla and--no, 2018. So that bill went into effect 
in 2008, and by 2018, Tesla and General Motors reached their cap of 
200,000 cars. They weren't getting anymore $7,500 if they sold a Tesla 
and if they sold a General Motors electric vehicle. And guess what. It 
didn't slow down the sales any. Tesla kept right on. They are past the 
million mark now and still going strong. So people want the product. We 
didn't have to give them Treasury or give them taxpayers' money to do 
it. General Motors hit their 200,000. Toyota reached theirs last year. 
Ford reached theirs September of last year. So all the major 
manufacturers. If we had not done the inflation reduction bill and put 
in new guidelines, all the people who would have gotten the $7,500 
credit from American taxpayers were all foreign manufacturers sending 
electric vehicles to America. That is not right.
  But now what happened is they picked and chose. So the Secretary of 
the Treasury--and we have had a conversation. We agree to disagree, and 
I disagree stronger than anyone's ever disagreed on something that they 
are doing that they shouldn't be doing. They are doing it wrong, and I 
will continue to fight and hold them accountable.
  Last week, I introduced a bipartisan bill with Senator Braun that 
would do one simple thing. It would implement the law as intended by 
putting the sourcing provision in effect immediately, whether Treasury 
chooses to issue guidance or not.
  I cannot pressure them to do their job on time, but I can do this: We 
can do our job. We wrote a piece of legislation, and we can make sure 
it takes effect when it was supposed to when they haven't done their 
job. They failed to do it. What we are going to say is, fine, and you 
implement it exactly the way you wrote the law.
  What they are trying to do is this. They said: We don't have rules 
and regulations, but from January 1--and still going on--they are going 
to continue to give $7,500 to everybody again. So they are opening it 
back up to General Motors. They are opening it back up to Tesla. They 
are opening it up to Toyota, to Ford. To everybody, it is opened up to 
start getting $7,500 again.
  Now, what they did, they chose out of our bill--the Inflation 
Reduction Act--they said: Yes, but if you make more than $150,000, you 
are not qualified. That is exactly what is in our bill. But they said 
they don't have rules and regulations, but they took that part of it. 
They said: Well, if you buy a sedan that costs more than $55,000, you 
don't qualify for the 7,500. If you buy a pickup truck that is more 
than 85,000, you don't qualify. That is all in our bill.
  If you can't write your rules and regulations, but you can pick and 
choose what you like in the bill, that means you don't want to enforce 
the bill the way it was written. That is what we should not tolerate. 
That is not what anybody in this body should ever tolerate, to let the 
Agencies do exactly what they think they want to do to appease whomever 
they are trying to appease versus what we passed and the intent of what 
we passed.
  That is what I am upset about, and that is why we are going to 
continue to fight.
  And as it stands right now, they are cherry-picking, and they have 
completely cherry-picked, and other Agencies will do the same. This 
selective implementation is going to create a disadvantage for some 
automakers while giving more flexibility to others by allowing this to 
happen.
  It is beyond being not right.
  So let me tell you what we are going to do to make sure that the 
American people understand.
  If you believe that we were wrong in passing that piece of 
legislation, then speak up. If you believe that we were wrong in saying 
that we should not be dependent on China, but you want to continue to 
have China dominating the market, you want them to have total control 
in a market that we are moving--it is the first time in the history of 
the United States that we have ever had to rely on a foreign supply 
chain for our transportation mode, whether it is trains, whether it is 
planes, whether it is automobiles, any form of transportation. We have 
been able to not have to depend on another foreign supply chain because 
we were able to do it in the United States.
  We have allowed a lot a manufacturing to leave. We are bringing it 
back now.
  So what we said basically in the bill was: You get $3,750 credit 
toward an electric vehicle you bought from an American manufacturer, 
when the vehicle was manufactured in North America. That is the 
culmination between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, which is 
what NAFTA, which is what the USMCA, the new bill, that is what we do, 
has been moving those vehicles back and forth.
  If it is manufactured here, you get 3,750. You get the first 3,750 if 
the selection of all the rare earth materials are selected from either 
North America or from countries that we have a free-trade agreement. 
And the reason that is done, we want to make sure that we have a secure 
channel for these rare earth minerals it takes to process and 
manufacture the battery.
  So the processing, as far as the selection of the rare earth 
minerals, they have to come from either North America or our free-trade 
agreement countries. That gives us a solid supply. We are not dependent 
on China or Russia or any other nation that does not have our best 
interests and is not a democracy, does not have the same beliefs that 
we have for human rights and everything else that we do. We have that 
first, and then basically, it has to be manufactured in North America. 
Then you get the other 3,750.
  So we use the $7,500 as the carrot to reimplement ourselves into the 
manufacturing and self-reliance of our transportation mode. That is 
simply it.
  I would hope everybody watching, listening, or anything else, as far 
as trying to get the knowledge of what we have done and what we have 
tried to do and what we are intending to make sure happens--which is to 
hold this administration, hold basically the Treasury Department and 
every other Agency that thinks that they can free will and just make up 
what they want and do what they want and pick regulations that they 
think that they would rather implement rather than implementing the 
law.
  That is where we are. That is what I want is to set the record 
straight. First

[[Page S164]]

of all, all the automakers in America who hit the 200,000 cap, this was 
a new lease on life for them--the IRA, selecting it, and I would quote, 
and I am going to read again from Mary Barra, who is the CEO of General 
Motors:

       [The] [d]irect sourcing [of] critical EV raw materials and 
     components from suppliers in North America and free-trade-
     agreement countries helps make our supply chain more secure, 
     helps us manage cell costs, and creates jobs.

  Now, that is one of our largest manufacturers of automobiles in the 
United States of America. If she thinks it is good for her company, if 
she thinks it is good for the American citizens and the car buyers in 
America, then it should be good enough that the bill should be 
implemented the way it was intended to. What we are going to do is 
reestablish ourselves: major manufacturing; not being reliant; 
superpower of the world--maintain that; have the energy sources; use 
our fossil, clean as anywhere in the world, for the next 10 years, as 
we are investing $369 billion for the new technology of carbonless or 
carbon-free energy. Then that is leadership. That is what the world 
needs. That is what the world expects from the United States, and if we 
are going to maintain this world power, be the superpower of the world, 
we must maintain that leadership.
  And it is tough at times, but we can do it. We have always done it.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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