Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) blasted the Biden administration Friday after the Treasury Department issued new rules on the use of electric vehicle tax credits.
The new guidance, released Friday, would open the door for more foreign exporters' electric vehicle products to receive expanded U.S. subsidies than initially expected. Manchin, who leads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that the Treasury-backed rules would hurt American manufacturing.
TREASURY PROPOSES OPENING ELECTRIC VEHICLE CREDITS TO MORE COUNTRIES AMID TRADE TENSIONS
"Yet again – the guidance released by the Department of the Treasury completely ignores the intent of the Inflation Reduction Act," Manchin said. "It is horrific that the Administration continues to ignore the purpose of the law which is to bring manufacturing back to America and ensure we have reliable and secure supply chains. American tax dollars should not be used to support manufacturing jobs overseas."
"It is a pathetic excuse to spend more taxpayer dollars as quickly as possible and further cedes control to the Chinese Communist Party in the process," he added. "The guidance includes a 60-day comment period and I ask for every American to comment. My comment is simple: stop this now — just follow the law."
The guidance represents a deescalation of an international trade conflict between the United States and allies in Europe and Asia that had been brewing for months after Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which put new restrictions on eligibility for the electric vehicle tax designed to favor North American EV and battery products and to reshore manufacturing away from China.
The Treasury Department's guidance, which comes after months of delay, details how the department intends to enforce the revamped consumer clean vehicle tax credit, which was rewritten in the Inflation Reduction Act to include the new strict content requirements for vehicles to be eligible. Manchin ensured that a vehicle must be assembled in North America and an increasing share of its battery components must also be manufactured or assembled in North America to be eligible for the full $7,500 tax credit.
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The credit, when it was initially passed into law, sparked fury among allied nations and their manufacturers, who argued it tilted the scales against their products.
Allied nations and their manufacturers, such as Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, sought flexibility with the requirements so that their products would not be excluded, and Treasury is working some into the implementation of the credit.