Last month, Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL) questioned a Department of Energy official on foreign impacts in energy appropriations during a House Science Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Five minutes.
00:01Thank you very much, Chairman Lucas.
00:03Following up on the Ranking Member's comments,
00:07I notice in your written testimony
00:08you mentioned the threat of Ukraine and Russia,
00:11but there was no mention of China whatsoever
00:14until the Ranking Member posed her question,
00:18and so I wanted to just directly ask you,
00:21do you feel there's any kind of
00:22an existential threat from China?
00:25I think there's a huge threat from China.
00:27We're looking at that and working on that
00:30in terms of exploring our national labs
00:32and making sure that all the investment
00:35that we make as taxpayers doesn't find its way
00:37as it has too often with American businesses to China.
00:40In terms of our American competitiveness,
00:42we're spending a lot of money in executing
00:44on diversifying our supply chains,
00:46including for critical minerals,
00:48which right now too much of that production is in China.
00:50So across the board,
00:51it's absolutely a key, key focus of our department.
00:55Thank you.
00:57As you're well aware, there was at least one thing
01:00that President Obama and President Trump
01:01both agreed on,
01:03and that is we should place tariffs on Chinese solar panels
01:07if we wanted American industry to prosper.
01:11The State Department clearly determined
01:13that China was evading the tariffs
01:16by sending them through Malaysia,
01:18Thailand, other countries,
01:20slapping on a made-in-that-country label
01:24and bringing them to the United States without tariffs.
01:27We passed bipartisan legislation
01:30to overturn the President's waiver of those tariffs,
01:36and he vetoed it.
01:38I can see the benefit to the Chinese,
01:41but I'm just wondering if the Department of Energy
01:43can see any benefit to that veto
01:45for the United States of America or Americans.
01:48So we spend a lot of time on these issues,
01:50solar, but looking at all the other critical technologies
01:53and the jobs associated with those technologies
01:56if we win the competition that's happening right now.
01:57No, I'm just trying to figure out
01:58what the logic was behind allowing them
02:01to continue evading the laws and the tariffs.
02:06Well, and we just announced Section 301 tariffs
02:09on a range of goods to try to make sure
02:11that we've got trade policy matched up
02:13with what we're doing with grants and loans.
02:14Yeah, I know that. I'm just wondering.
02:15All in an industrial strategy.
02:17What the logic could have possibly been
02:20for vetoing the legislation
02:22that would have enforced the tariffs?
02:25Well, the thing that we're doing,
02:26and this is where our analytical capabilities come in.
02:29Just the logic.
02:31I know you're trying to make some amends for that,
02:33and I appreciate that.
02:35I'm just wondering what the logic was behind vetoing it.
02:39So let me, we look sector by sector,
02:41technology by technology.
02:44What are we doing on the grant side,
02:45on the loan side, on the tax incentive side,
02:48and how do we protect those investments
02:49with tariffs, with trade policy,
02:52and do it all in a very systematic,
02:54very orderly way, not just our department,
02:57but working with USTR,
02:58our trade representative, state department.
03:01And so happy to talk to you, Congressman,
03:05whenever you're eager to talk about solar
03:07or other issues to show how we're analyzing all that,
03:10and we put forward recommendations
03:12of this tariff should be increased,
03:14this tariff should be lowered, all those kinds of things.
03:16We're a waste of time, so there is no logic
03:18that you can think of how those vetoes
03:20could have helped Americans.
03:21So again, it's part of this broader strategy
03:23that we're doing on solar,
03:25and I'm happy to talk about how that fits in.
03:28Gentleman yields.