Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
The 45X Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit is a top incentive for stimulating and supporting clean energy and battery manufacturing in the US. However, at the moment, there are ways that Chinese companies can benefit from this, if they build factories in the US. That is completely unacceptable to some people, including Congressmen John Moolenaar (Michigan Republican) and Jared Golden (Maine Democrat). Moolenaar and Golden propose that the tax credit “shall have no force or effect” as a result. If the House of Representatives and the Senate agree in the new year, and President Donald Trump does too, the tax credit could be killed. That said, experts on the topic think it’s more likely to be modified to close loopholes.
“[T]here is some optimism regarding the future of the US clean energy manufacturing space, considering that initiatives such as the IRA have received bipartisan support,” PV Tech writes. “Moolenaar and Golden’s proposal to simply eliminate the 45X credit in its entirety will likely not receive support from US-based manufacturers, and figures in both the Republican and Democrat parties, who have welcomed the greater incentives for onshoring US manufacturing capacity, according to analysis from Wood Mackenzie.”
“There’s a probability, we think it’s likely, that there will be restrictions on the ability of Chinese companies to access the section 45X credit, which is the main incentive for manufacturing in the US,” said Christian Roselund, senior policy analyst at the Clean Energy Associates (CEA). “Now, a fair amount of [new manufacturing facilities] are being built by Chinese companies, or [are] joint ventures that have a Chinese partner; we do think that it will be possible for most of those companies to successfully navigate the rules that will be put in place, that’s why it’s only a low to moderate market impact.”
Congressman Moolenaar has been focused on this topic for a while. Last year, he submitted the “NO GOTION Act.” Gotion High Tech is a major Chinese battery company. It has a California subsidiary, Gotion, that plans to invest $2.4 billion into a factory in Michigan. So, while the “No Official Giveaways Of Taxpayers’ Income To Oppressive Nations Act” had a broader aim, it’s clear where the idea came from and what the prime focus was.
Congressman Golden has seemingly just won a very tight race to hold his seat representing the 2nd Congressional District of Maine. However, a hand recount is scheduled to start on December 2.
We’ll see where all of this goes, and we’ll keep you updated.
Related story: Graph: The Enormous Increase in US Manufacturing Construction from Biden’s Green New Deal Policies
Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy
