The Electric: The Climate Bill Sparks Two New Political Battles

Save the date: On September 8, we celebrate our first anniversary with a special event on perhaps the most important challenge facing the industry—building a battery supply chain independent of China. Our guest for this 3 p.m. ET live chat will be Bob Galyen, former chief technology officer of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., the world’s largest battery company. Register here for this subscriber-only event. Email me directly if you’d like to invite a guest: [email protected].

The landmark law to combat climate change signed by President Joe Biden last week—designed in part to develop a U.S. supply chain for electric vehicle batteries—has sparked two fierce political battles: Environmental groups are resisting a push spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin to streamline the permitting process for projects including mines. And auto, battery and mining companies are likely to wage a fight over efforts to waive tariffs on imports of Chinese battery materials.

The wrangling points up a significant wrinkle in the movement to establish local battery supply chains in the West: Environmentalist groups have competing and contradictory principles. They favor the drive for EVs but push back against efforts to mine for the metals that go into EV batteries, such as lithium. In the U.S., a mining project proposed by Lithium Americas in Thacker Pass, Nev., has been under review for four years. In Europe, local protests have postponed a major hard-rock lithium mining project in Portugal, and in January the Serbian government halted a Rio Tinto lithium project after demonstrators staged street marches.