The United States should develop its own clean energy supply “soup to nuts” — but that doesn’t mean banning Chinese products, a top Biden administration official said today. At POLITICO's first-ever energy summit, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stressed the importance of U.S.-based manufacturing for an emerging industry that includes electric cars, batteries and solar panels. The idea is to create jobs, while shifting the pendulum away from Chinese-dominated clean energy markets. “We want to be able to have our own energy security here,” she said (after anti-pipeline protesters were wrestled away from the stage). "At the same time, the administration has taken some steps that would allow Chinese companies and Chinese goods to enter the market." Sharon Burke, who worked on energy and climate issues in the Obama administration, said even if the administration wanted to, the U.S. is too reliant on China to fully decouple the economies. “Right now, the legacy economy is a global market, and we can’t decouple even if we wanted to,” said Burke, who now heads the research and advisory firm Ecospherics. That won’t stop Republicans from trying, however. The complex dynamic has provided grist for GOP lawmakers to attack President Joe Biden’s climate policy and U.S. companies doing business with China. The administration has also weathered bipartisan criticism. Twenty-one Democrats joined Republicans last month in a vote to reinstate an import tariff for solar equipment that they saw as benefiting China. (Biden vetoed the resulting bill last week.) That power struggle could threaten the fight against climate change, write Sara Schonhardt and Phelim Kine. As the U.S. invests billions into moving away from fossil fuels, it’s also trying to wean itself off China for clean energy gear like solar panels and battery technology. But if the U.S. and China divvy up markets and try to box out their rivals, that could take entire supply chains out of circulation and slow global efforts to combat the climate crisis. For example, competition between the two superpowers could complicate financing opportunities for African and Asian countries that rely on U.S. funding and China’s loan programs to transition away from burning fossil fuels, write Sara and Phelim. The battle for dominance has already implicated businesses large and small. Republicans have criticized Ford Motor for licensing technology from a China-based producer of electric vehicle batteries, while local solar panel installers are threatened by the bipartisan effort to restore tariffs on Chinese-made materials. State and local governments, along with U.S. companies, also face potential political backlash if they work with Chinese companies to build clean-energy factories in the United States. The dynamic is also creating headaches overseas with European countries angry at Washington’s protectionism.
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