A GOP senator from Louisiana enjoyed success Wednesday in his effort to amend an energy bill to prohibit imports of clean energy components unless the United Nations can verify they weren’t obtained through slave or child labor.
Sen. Bill Cassidy attacked the Clean Energy for America Act sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asserting it ignores human rights abuses in places like China and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The proposal would not only destroy well-paying, middle-class jobs, but will also exacerbate a dire humanitarian situation. The technologies this bill promotes are sourced from countries with long histories of both forced labor and child labor,” Cassidy said.
The senator then went on to cite media reports about the abuses.
“The New Yorker reports that in the Congo, ‘children as young as 3 learn to pick out the purest ore from rocks slabs’ and ‘children who work in the mines are often drugged, in order to suppress hunger.’ The article asks ‘Is your electric car the new blood diamond?’ The Deseret News recently reported on slave labor in the cobalt mines in the Congo, quoted a mother saying, ‘our children are dying like dogs.’ Meanwhile, BBC reports that solar panels being imported into the United States from China were the result of forced labor by an imprisoned Uyghur population.”
In the Senate Finance Committee where he introduced three amendments, Cassidy said the Clean Energy for America Act failed to address the human rights abuses.
“It turns a blind eye on slave labor and in fact increases America’s dependence on the very nations perpetuating it. I don’t think I have to say transitioning to an economy based off of child slave labor is un-American,” he said.
That amendment passed on a voice vote.
Two other amendments by Cassidy, however, were blocked by Democrats in a 14-14 tie vote broken by Wyden’s rejection of the measures.
One of the amendments would have limited the proposed electric vehicle tax credit expansion to only be eligible for “non-luxury vehicles,” defined as those costing less than $47,500.
His other amendment would have required that to be eligible for the Clean Electricity Production Credit, all components used in the construction of wind turbines, solar cells and energy storage technology must be manufactured or mined using goods produced in a net zero emissions manner verified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Cassidy criticized the Clean Energy America Act for killing U.S. jobs in favor of increasing dependence on foreign nations.
“Personally, I’d love to see us do more in the energy tax space. Climate change is an issue we should certainly consider. With Louisiana’s coastline succumbing to erosion and sea level rise, and the increasingly erratic weather hammering our state, I certainly get it,” Cassidy said. “But pursuing policies like the ones in this bill will destroy jobs in Louisiana and send them to China and other countries that have worse environmental standards, worse standards, (and) will increase global emissions. That’s pouring salt in in the wound for families in my state.”
Among other things, the act provides an emissions-based, technology-neutral tax credit for the production of clean electricity and provides that any new zero emission facility may elect either a production tax credit of up to 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour or an investment tax credit of up to 30%.
In addition, it encourages transportation electrification through long-term incentives for battery and fuel cell electric vehicles and electric vehicle charging and repeals tax incentives for fossil fuels, ensuring the tax code rewards only clean energy.
Wyden said the Clean Energy for America Act overhauls an antiquated system of tax breaks in the energy arena.
“On the federal tax books today is a hodgepodge of 44 different energy tax breaks for a host of fuel sources and technologies. These tax breaks have stacked up over the decades like dusty old papers on the messiest desk in the office,” he said. “The system is anti-competitive and anti-innovation. It puts the government in the role of picking winners and losers by giving some fuels and technologies big, permanent tax breaks while others have short-term, temporary extensions.”
The act passed on a party line vote, drawing praise from its advocates.
“Every Democratic senator voted in favor of Sen. Wyden’s Clean Energy for America Act, which makes the investments in new clean electricity and infrastructure we need to build a 100% clean future with good-paying jobs, breathable and clean air, and a safe and stable climate,” said John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress.