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31 August, 2023
US offers $12 billion to auto makers,
suppliers for advanced vehicles
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer
Granholm delivers a speech ahead of a conversation with Daniel Yergin,
the vice chairman of S&P Global, during the CERAWeek energy conference
in Houston, Texas, U.S., March 8, 2023. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare/File
Photo Acquire Licensing Rights
WASHINGTON, Aug 31 (Reuters) - The Biden
administration is offering $12 billion in grants and loans for auto
makers and suppliers to retrofit their plants to produce electric and
other advanced vehicles, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on
Thursday.
"While we transition to EVs, we want to ensure
that workers can transition in place, that there is no worker, no
community left behind," Granholm, a former governor of
car-manufacturing state Michigan, told reporters in a call.
Speeding grants and other subsidies to fund
conversion of existing auto plants to build electric vehicles could
help the White House blunt criticism from automakers and the United
Auto Workers (UAW) union over proposed environmental rules aimed to
help usher in the EV era.
The UAW has
warned that a rapid change could put thousands of jobs at risk in
states such as Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
Last week UAW members voted
overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing a strike at the Detroit
Three automakers if an agreement over wages and pension plans is not
reached before the current four-year contract expires on Sept. 14.
On Thursday UAW President Shawn Fain cheered the
announcement, saying the policy "makes clear to employers that the EV
transition must include strong union partnerships with the high pay
and safety standards that generations of UAW members have fought for
and won."
President Joe Biden said in a release that
"building a clean energy economy can and should provide a win-win
opportunity for auto companies and unionized workers who have anchored
the American economy for decades."
Fain has vowed to save a Jeep factory in
Belvidere, Illinois, that Stellantis (STLAM.MI) has put
on track to shutter. The automaker has left open the possibility
that the factory could get a new product with government aid.
When asked about the chances that the grants
could keep that factory open, Granholm said plants that had been built
up around communities are "prime for taking advantage of these funding
opportunities."
There will be no specific labor requirements for
companies to obtain the funding, but projects that have better labor
conditions will have a greater chance of receiving the funding, an
Energy Department official said on the call.
The administration will also offer $3.5 billion
in funding to domestic battery manufacturers, Granholm said.
For the advanced vehicles, $2 billion in grants
will come from the Inflation Reduction Act which was passed by
Democrats last year, and $10 billion in loans will derive from the
Energy Department's Loans Program Office.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner in
Washington Additional reporting by Joe White in Detroit; Editing by
Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis
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