Senators Grill Energy Deputy Over Chinese-Owned Company Qualifying for Grant

Since the November 2021 adoption of the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated $37 billion to companies bidding to participate in 72 research and development programs designed to foster domestic energy independence.
Among 60 new DOE programs launched under BIL, adopted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, is a $7 billion initiative to boost the nation’s lithium battery materials processing and component manufacturing capacity.
Right now, China controls about 90 percent of the global market in raw lithium and batteries. 
A worker’s reflection on a mirror framing a lithium-ion battery production line at a plant in Huzhou, China, owned by Microvast Holdings, whose Texas-based subsidiary qualified to negotiate for a $200 million U.S. Department of Energy grant to build lithium batteries in the United States. (Stringer/Reuters)
During a two-hour Feb. 2 discussion on the status of BIL programs in the 14 months since enactment, members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee questioned if the DOE’s vetting process was adequate….}