Manchin threatens to sue US Treasury over EV tax credit rules
Send a link to a friend
[March 30, 2023]
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Energy Committee Chair Joe Manchin said on
Wednesday he may go to court after the U.S. Treasury releases guidance
later this week on battery sourcing guidance for electric vehicle tax
credits.
"If it goes off the rails" and violates the intent of the climate
legislation approved in August, "I will do whatever I can - if that
means going to court and I can do it, I'd do it," said Manchin, a
Democrat.
Manchin said he is most concerned about how Treasury will classify
processing and manufacturing in determining eligibility for $7,500 EV
tax credits. Manchin, who has often pushed fossil fuel industry
interests in Congress, says he is trying to move the EV battery supply
chain from China. His political opponents say he doesn't like the EV
industry.
"Manufacturing is meant to bring manufacturing back to the United
States. It's not basically allowing everyone to put all the parts and
build everything you can for that battery somewhere else and then send
it here for assembly," Manchin told reporters.
Reuters reported earlier the Treasury battery sourcing rules for
electric vehicle tax credits, due out by Friday, will result in fewer
vehicles qualifying for full or partial credits.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/30/images/ads/current/elkhartfertilizer_sda_SFARM_2023.png)
The EV rules are part of a $430 billion bill passed by Democrats in
August to cut climate emissions and reduce drug costs, dubbed the
Inflation Reduction Act.
The Treasury declined to comment on Manchin's remarks.
Under the new rules, 50% of the value of battery components must to be
produced or assembled in North America for EV buyers to qualify for
$3,750 of the credit, and 40% of the value of critical minerals must be
sourced from the United States or a country with which it has a free
trade agreement to qualify for another $3,750 credit.
[to top of second column]
|
![](../images/033023PIX/news_a92.jpg)
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is seen
in Statuary Hall ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden’s State of the
Union Address in Washington, U.S., February 7, 2023.
REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/30/images/ads/current/graue_lda_SFARM_2023.png)
Those quotas rise by 10 percentage points annually.
China dominates the global supply chains of products like EV
batteries and solar panels.
Manchin hammered the Biden administration, which he hamstrung in
legislative negotiations last year, in a Wall Street Journal opinion
piece Wednesday, accusing it of thwarting the bill's original
intent.
"Instead of implementing the law as intended, unelected ideologues,
bureaucrats and appointees seem determined to violate and subvert
the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and
fiscal security ... The administration is attempting at every turn
to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually
passed."
Manchin also urged Biden "to sit down with fiscally minded
Republicans and Democrats to negotiate common-sense reforms to
out-of-control fiscal policy."
The White House has no immediate comment.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Heather Timmons and
Stephen Coates)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Mar/30/images/ads/current/culligan_sda_SFARM_2023.png) |