The Heritage Foundation released a study this week saying that the Democrats’ broad green energy plan is making the U.S. dependent on raw materials that China has a lot of. This puts the U.S. at a strategic and economic disadvantage.
To get the U.S. off of fossil fuels and onto green energy as the main power source for the economy, the Biden-Harris administration has spent a lot of taxpayer money and regulated heavily, according to a report from the Heritage Foundation. This strategy works out well for China because it has a lot of the raw materials needed to make solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles (EVs). The study tells lawmakers that they should use America’s huge fossil fuel reserves to keep energy costs low in the United States and to provide cheap energy to allies while quickly shifting their focus away from becoming more dependent on China.
The Heritage Foundation’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Miles Pollard wrote the report. It says that China has taken over the world’s supply chains for green energy products and parts by using WTO (World Trade Organization) mechanisms, stealing intellectual property from foreign companies, and buying foreign companies. “If the United States keeps requiring these green energy goods, it will give up economic power to China and let China handle the energy security of the United States.”
The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 with VP Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote. The IRA had hundreds of billions of dollars in it to help green technologies like wind, solar, and electric vehicles (EVs). But the study says that it will be impossible to compete with Chinese companies that get a lot of help from the Chinese government and unfair trade practices if we try to subsidize American green technology.
The writers tell American leaders, “Refuse to get involved in an unwinnable subsidy war and get rid of all green tax benefits and credits. That way, American customers will be able to make a more logical choice of energy sources and choice of cars and appliances, but investors will have fewer reasons to invest in green industries instead of America’s power-dense nuclear and abundant hydrocarbon industries.”
