After Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praised China on Friday for its efforts to combat climate change, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are seeking a retraction of those remarks and demanding that Granholm “testify immediately.”
Granholm, during a March 10 interview for the 2023 South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, said “we can all learn from what China is doing” to lessen its carbon footprint. She commended China for being “very sensitive” on the issue of climate change, claiming that its investments in clean energy have been “encouraging.”
The Republicans, in a March 13 letter (pdf) to Granholm, wrote that they were “deeply troubled” by her remarks, which they said raised “serious questions about [her] judgment and priorities” as Energy secretary.
“China poses one of the greatest economic, military, and geopolitical threats to the United States, while continuing to be one of the world’s worst polluters,” they wrote. “As the Secretary of Energy, your core responsibilities involve national security, particularly maintaining and certifying the reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent and protecting our most sensitive technological secrets from theft by our chief adversaries, Russia and China.”
Granholm’s “alarming” comments, the lawmakers added, “at best, reflect an uninformed, unserious perspective on the goals and intentions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its abysmal human rights and environmental record.”
The lawmakers also expressed concern over the Biden administration’s “rush-to-green agenda,” noting that the energy sources the administration has been promoting largely rely on critical minerals sourced from China.
“Plus, this administration’s constant promotion of mandates and subsidies to electrify our transportation systems will result in American mobility controlled with components and materials from China,” they added. “Meanwhile, the CCP continues to build and utilize coal-fired power plants at home and abroad to further spread its influence, while increasing its carbon emissions.”
Other experts have shared in that concern.
In a recent interview with NTD News, Centennial Institute Senior Fellow in Energy and Environment Kelly Sloan questioned China’s motives in investing in climate-friendly initiatives, positing that the country’s end goals were less likely to be about climate change than they were glorifying China and weaponizing the demand for green energy materials against its adversaries.
Stressing China’s significant share of the market for materials like copper, cobalt, and lithium, the Republican legislators maintained that Granholm’s comments only served to aid China in its agenda, adding, “We expect you to make yourself available to the Committee to testify immediately.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Energy for comment.
From The Epoch Times