(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Democratic Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin voted against a bill Thursday that would rein in efforts to ban gas-powered cars after she reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) covering confidential development projects, including one by a Chinese Communist Party-linked electric vehicle (EV) battery company.
Slotkin, who is running for a seat in the Senate in 2024, voted against the Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act, which would “amend the Clean Air Act to prevent the elimination of the sale of internal combustion engine vehicles.” In January 2022, Slotkin reportedly signed an NDA with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) covering “any potential development project identified as confidential,” which would include projects of Chinese Communist Party-linked Gotion Inc., according to Fox News.
The bill would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from issuing future waivers to the Clean Air Act that allow states like California to pursue tighter pollution standards than those set by the federal government, and would also force the EPA to cancel any waivers issued since January 2022 that would “directly or indirectly limit the sale or use of new motor vehicles with internal combustion engines,” according to the bill’s text. (RELATED: Michigan Announces $715 Million Contract With Chinese Communist Party-Affiliated Company)
Gotion Inc. is an EV battery firm that is planning to build two plants near Big Rapids, Michigan, within about 100 miles of a U.S. military site that has hosted Taiwanese soldiers to receive training from the Michigan National Guard. The company also has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through its parent company, China-based Gotion High-Tech. The parent firm employs numerous CCP members, including its CEO, and previously established a joint venture company with a firm linked to the Chinese military.
Gotion Inc. agreed to a confidentiality agreement with the MEDC in December 2021, approximately one month before Slotkin inked her NDA with the MEDC, Fox News reported. Slotkin’s agreement was amended in December 2022 to include two redacted projects and to clarify that it broadly applies to “any potential development project identified as confidential,” which would include Gotion Inc.’s project in the state, Fox News reported.
Representatives for Slotkin have maintained that she has not entered into an NDA related to the Gotion Inc. project; however, according to Fox News, her NDA covers “confidential” projects, which would therefore include the Gotion development project.
“For a former CIA officer and sitting member of Congress who has had a TS/SCI security clearance, and has been read in by our intel agencies on the existential national security threat of China, it is highly irregular for Elissa Slotkin, and a staff member, to have signed binding and punitive NDAs with the MEDC involving a PRC-based company with deep ties to the CCP,” Joseph Cella, a former U.S. ambassador and co-founder of the Michigan-China Economic and Security Review Group, told the DCNF.
“On its face, this was a reckless decision Elissa Slotkin made and shows a gross lack of prudential judgment,” Cella said. “Federal, state and local elected officials, on a bi-partisan basis, have been briefed that such ‘deals’ are considered subnational incursions and influence operations.”
Slotkin has described China as an adversary to the U.S. in the past. She also praised fellow Democrats for “[passing] bills to incentivize American manufacturing and bring supply chains home from places like China.”
Slotkin also lauded legislation aimed at enhancing ethics and disclosure standards for Supreme Court Justices as “a step towards ensuring transparency and accountability” in a key institution, but she has not yet gone on the record to describe the nature of her NDA and its reported relation to Gotion Inc.
In addition to the reported NDA agreement, Slotkin also appears to have benefited from donations funneled to her by lobbyists hired by Gotion Inc., Fox News reported Monday.
“While Elissa Slotkin in the past has called for transparency, this ‘deal’ has been hushed and rushed by the State of Michigan, using code names and NDAs, and is among the worst examples of government operating in secret,” Cella told the DCNF.
Gotion Inc., which is listed as a Chinese foreign principal in filings with the Department of Justice, is also set to build another subsidized facility in Manteno, Illinois, which will be within 30 miles of two other U.S. military installations.
Gotion Inc. North American Manufacturing vice president Chuck Thelen has asserted that the CCP does not maintain a presence in the U.S.-based arm of the company, according to Politico.
However, Gotion High-Tech, Gotion Inc.’s parent company, employed 923 active members of the Chinese Communist Party as of 2022, including CEO Li Zhen, as reported previously by the DCNF. CCP officials also established a talent recruitment “work station,” a key tactic that CCP officials use to attract Western talent to work in the Chinese mainland, at Gotion Inc.’s Fremont, California, headquarters in 2017, the DCNF reported.
Additionally, employees of Gotion High-Tech made CCP oaths and dressed as Red Army soldiers during company excursions, the DCNF previously reported. Numerous Gotion High-Tech employees wore matching Red Army uniforms while swearing to “fight for communism to the end of my life.”
Slotkin’s Senate campaign, the MEDC, Gotion Inc. and Gotion High-Tech all did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who is running for U.S. Senate, voted against legislation that would bar states from capping the sale of gas-fueled cars; one of the main drivers of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike is President Joe Biden’s move to push electric vehicles over gas-powered engines.
The House voted on bipartisan lines to pass the Preserving Choice in Vehicles Purchases Act, which would amend federal law to block state moves to eliminate the sale of gas-powered engines and it would bar the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) from issuing waivers that would ban such of these vehicles.
House Republicans introduced the legislation as the California Air Resource Board moved to ban the sale of new, internal-combustion engine-powered vehicles by 2035 and require all new vehicles to have zero emissions.
“These bans will substantially increase costs and put personal vehicles out of reach for many hardworking people. Americans can make consumer choices based on their merits and needs, not on radical mandates rooted in trying to force Green New Deal directives on families,” House Rules Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) said this week.
Notably, Slotkin was one of the 190 House Democrats to vote against the legislation, even though eight House Democrats voted with Republicans to enact this legislation.
The Michigan Democrat’s embrace of the effort to sunset gas-powered cars in favor of electric vehicles (EVs) comes as the United Auto Workers (UAW) are on strike, and a major contention for the auto union is the Democrats’ push for a transition to EVs, which will dramatically reduce the number of auto jobs.
Slotkin said on Thursday that the scene for the United Auto Workers (UAW) was set because inflation was taking money out of auto workers’ pockets.
Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney wrote in the Breitbart Business Digest that the UAW strike is as much as “a protest against Bidenomics as it is the policies of General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis:”
A big one was the agreement to accept contracts that no longer tied worker pay to inflation.
The pressure put on the unions at the time was tremendous. The Obama administration relentlessly pushed for acceptance of its program, largely because it wanted to claim credit for rescuing the auto industry. The workers were threatened with economic ruin if they did not sacrifice to prop up their failing employers. Politically, the unions were left adrift, abandoned by the Democrats who had long been their allies and finding little welcome among a Republican party still dominated by establishment types enthralled to the agenda of big business and Wall Street.
Carney also wrote that the “promise of low inflation” was broken by the “bloated fiscal policies of the Biden administration.” He also contended that the Biden administration pushed the auto manufacturers to make more electric vehicles, which will mean a rapid decline in payrolls for autoworkers, even though auto manufacturers will enjoy generous Inflation Reduction Act subsidies.
Slotkin was a strong supporter of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“It will bring critical battery and electric vehicle supply chains back to the U.S. — boosting Michigan’s economy and making sure America, not China, leads the way on the next generation of vehicles,” she wrote in a statement in August 2022 regarding her vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Inflation Reduction Act is just one part of the Biden administration’s push to make half of all new vehicle sales electric by 2030. The EPA’s “ambitious” emissions standards for passenger cars and light trucks would seek to ensure two-thirds of new passenger cars sold in the U.S. are all-electric by 2032.
The UAW is reportedly “openly skeptical” about Biden’s push for more electric vehicles.
The UAW “chastised Biden for steering hundreds of billions of dollars towards incentives for electric vehicles, which could threaten UAW jobs.
A UAW study found that the shift away from traditional engines could cost 35,000 union jobs.
The Economic Policy Institute found that 75,000 jobs could be lost if Biden achieves his goal of making half of cars sold by 2030 electric.
The UAW also has withheld its endorsement of Biden over his push to make more electric vehicles.
Despite the UAW’s concerns with Biden’s push to electric vehicles and away from traditional gas engines, Slotkin said on Friday that she stands with the UAW. She wrote,
I’m looking forward to joining our auto workers on the picket line this weekend. For Michigan’s sake, I hope the strike is short lived. As someone who used to negotiate international agreements, I know that no one should let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I hope the UAW and the Big Three continue to negotiate in good faith to reach a fair agreement as quickly as possible.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) wrote, “Yesterday liberal Democrat @ElissaSlotkin, who is running for Senate in MICHIGAN, voted in favor of banning gas cars. Don’t they like gas cars in Michigan?”
Slotkin’s office has yet to respond to a comment request regarding her vote.
“Last night, Elissa Slotkin chose her party over Michigan by voting to ban gas cars. Slotkin’s commitment to extreme progressive ideas will hurt Michigan manufacturing,” NRSC spokeswoman Maggie Abboud told Breitbart News in a written statement.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.