Biden administration announces a $1.7 billion plan to juice electric vehicles in America
CNN
The White House on Thursday said it would hand out $1.7 billion to help convert shuttered or at-risk auto manufacturing and assembly facilities to make electric and hybrid vehicles.
The White House on Thursday said it would hand out $1.7 billion to help convert closed-down or at-risk auto manufacturing and assembly facilities to make electric and hybrid vehicles. The funding comes as growth in new electric vehicle sales has slowed, even as the Biden administration wants to keep US EV manufacturers competitive with a surging Chinese industry. Just earlier this year President Joe Biden quadrupled tariffs on electric vehicles from China. “This announcement is a hallmark of the Biden administration’s industrial strategy, which is a strategy to bring manufacturing jobs back to America after years of offshoring,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters. The plants selected by the Department of Energy for the money, which comes from the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, cover eight states, including critical battlegrounds like Michigan and Pennsylvania. “Building a clean energy economy can and should be a win-win for union autoworkers and automakers. This investment will create thousands of good-paying, union manufacturing jobs and retain even more—from Lansing, Michigan to Fort Valley, Georgia – by helping auto companies retool, reboot, and rehire in the same factories and communities,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. The projects, according to the administration, create an estimated 2,900 new jobs and save 15,000 jobs that would otherwise have been lost. The awardees include major automakers like GM and Volvo as well as suppliers, like American Auto Parts.
Nippon Steel is expected to re-file its application for a national security review by American regulators of its $15 billion takeover bid of US Steel, sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday, buying Japan’s largest steelmaker an additional 90 days to close its acquisition of an American rival after political opposition emerged in an election year.
So far, the attacks that targeted Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah members through their pagers have had devastating consequences. At least nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, were killed, and at least 2,800 were wounded. Over 150 of those injured are in critical condition, according to the Lebanese health minister.