Energy Department aggravates Rep. Lucas

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Oklahoma Congressman Frank Lucas is far from finished in his effort to learn more about the U.S. Energy Department’s awarding of a $200 million grant to a company with well-known ties to the Chinese Communist Party. He’s started to get tough with the department.

In his capacity as the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Rep. Lucas sent a second follow-up letter to the Energy Department demanding more information about the grant because the agency is not cooperating with his committee.

“It is deeply troubling that the Department has not been able to communicate any information that explains its vetting process in adequate detail or demonstrates that sufficient guardrails are in place to ensure that companies that receive awards do not transfer funding or technology to China and are not subject to undue influence by the CCP,” he wrote.

It is also the Committee’s third request to the DOE since December 2022.The second request, sent in January 2022, received an interim  response, noting the DOE would not provide more information on the status of the grant awards until a certain review phase had been completed.

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Sparking the original concern was an October 2022 battery grant awarded to Microvast, a manufacturing company operating primarily from China. The $200 million funding for this grant was used from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and was directed to give priority to entities that would not export recovered critical materials to or use battery material supplied by or originating from a foreign entity of concern, including China.

“The Department’s lack of sufficient guardrails to protect federal research dollars and inability to provide an adequate and timely response to the Science Committee’s good faith inquiries escalates our serious concerns about the Department’s research security practices,” Lucas wrote.

“It has been more than three months since we first raised this issue to the Department and nearly five months since the Department announced the grants in question.

In his letter, Lucas called the information critical, not only for the oversight of the awards announced in October, but to ensure the DOE has appropriate safeguards in place for the billions of dollars in new taxpayer funding.

“If DOE cannot confirm that it has thorough processes in place to protect its awards from exploitation by the CCP, future award announcements may also be cause for Congressional concern,” he declared.

Lucas once again urged DOE to immediately pause any further funding for this program, and to provide the requested documents no later than 5:00 p.m. on March 22, 2023.

The full letter is available here.