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Biden's Energy Department Funnels Millions to Beijing-Backed Green Energy Company

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President Joe Biden's Energy Department funneled millions of dollars to a 
green energy company in the months after the company partnered with a 
Chinese state-owned entity that it acknowledges could face business-
crippling sanctions.

Carbon capture company LanzaTech, federal spending disclosures show, has 
received more than $10 million in grant payments from the Biden 
administration since April 2021, when the company announced a partnership 
with Sinopec Capital—the clean energy investment arm of the Sinopec Group, 
a Chinese state-owned oil conglomerate also known as the China 
Petrochemical Corporation—to "debut an international market of new energy 
and new materials." LanzaTech has acknowledged in SEC disclosures that its 
association with Sinopec, which China has used to purchase oil from U.S.-
sanctioned nations such as Russia and Iran, could jeopardize its bottom 
line. The company's financial interactions with Sinopec and other Beijing-
run entities, LanzaTech wrote in a November filing, could bring 
"complications" and "restrictions" should the United States or other 
nations implement "sanctions on certain Chinese individuals." That filing 
also notes "that the Chinese government may intervene or influence our 
operations at any time" and that LanzaTech may be unable to "protect our 
interests" in Chinese joint ventures "by nominating a non-Chinese director 
to the board of directors of any such joint venture." Sinopec Capital 
managing director Bo Ren, who worked for CITIC's brokerage arm prior to 
joining Sinopec and who graduated from a Chinese university that sits on a 
U.S. trade blacklist for stealing American trade secrets, is a LanzaTech 
board member.

Biden has placed green energy at the center of his administration's 
priorities, with the Democrat working to invest billions of dollars in 
"America's clean energy economy" to create "good-paying jobs" in the 
United States. However, China's dominance of the clean energy supply chain 
challenges that priority. In addition to LanzaTech, Biden's Energy 
Department has touted a $200 million grant to lithium battery company 
Microvast Holdings, which the department said would "supercharge the 
private sector to ensure our clean energy future is America-made." 
Microvast operates primarily out of China and was recently added to a 
Securities and Exchange Commission watchlist of Chinese companies that 
have failed to comply with American auditing requirements, the Washington 
Free Beacon reported Tuesday.

LanzaTech's partnership with Sinopec was not the first time the company 
aligned itself with a Beijing-run entity. In June 2018, LanzaTech entered 
into a joint venture with Chinese state-owned steel giant Shougang Group 
to build an ethanol plant in China's Hubei province, one of the company's 
three plants in the communist nation. LanzaTech has also raised millions 
from CITIC Capital, a subsidiary of China's largest state-run 
conglomerate. Still, the company's relationships with Beijing did not stop 
the Biden administration from sending LanzaTech millions of dollars for 
green energy projects such as "low-cost sustainable aviation fuel."

For Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton, Biden's support for companies 
such as LanzaTech shows that the Democrat's "green energy agenda is 
stamped with the words ‘made in China.'"

"Instead of handing millions of taxpayer dollars to a Chinese-backed 
company, the president should be encouraging American energy production 
and American energy independence," Cotton told the Free Beacon.

Neither the White House nor LanzaTech returned requests for comment. The 
Energy Department told the Free Beacon that it "makes financial assistance 
awards on a competitive basis and follows a rigorous merit review process 
using independent technical experts" and "requires that DOE-funded 
inventions be substantially manufactured in the United States." The 
department did not return a follow-up request for comment on its payments 
to LanzaTech following the company's Sinopec partnership.

LanzaTech has political connections to top Democrats. One of the company's 
most influential financiers, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, 
led then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's India policy team in 2008 
and went on to host a $32,400-a-head Democratic Party fundraiser at his 
California mansion, which Obama personally attended. Obama's former deputy 
chief of staff and campaign manager Jim Messina, meanwhile, joined 
LanzaTech's board in 2013. LanzaTech received tens of millions of dollars 
in Energy Department grants during Obama's time as president, some of 
which carried over to the Trump administration, which awarded the company 
less than $3 million in new grants prior to its Sinopec deal. In September 
2022 company CEO Jennifer Holmgren accepted a White House invite to brief 
Biden administration officials and members of Congress "on the progress 
LanzaTech has made in leveraging biotechnology and biomanufacturing for a 
safe, secure, and sustainable U.S. bioeconomy."

Beyond LanzaTech, the Biden administration has already faced criticism for 
its dealings with Sinopec. Biden's Energy Department in April announced 
the sale of nearly one million Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to the 
Chinese state-controlled gas giant's trading arm, Unipec, a move the 
administration said would "support American consumers" and "combat Putin's 
price hike." But the sale—which helped drain the Strategic Petroleum 
Reserve to its lowest level in more than four decades—came as Unipec 
underwent an "unusual buying spree" aimed at boosting China's own oil 
reserves. It also came as China used Sinopec and its state-run affiliates 
to strengthen the nation's energy relationship with Russia and Iran. The 
sale prompted congressional Republicans to open a formal investigation 
into the Biden administration.

Biden is now facing similar probes over his green energy grants. Sen. John 
Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee, on Dec. 7 launched an inquiry into the 
administration's Microvast grant. That grant "endangers our national 
security" and "undermine[s] the United States' position in its race 
against China for technological supremacy," Barrasso said in a letter to 
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Former energy secretary Rick Perry 
also called for congressional investigations into Granholm for the grant, 
which he called "unacceptable."

Published under: Biden Administration, China, Clean Energy for Biden, 
Department of Energy, Feature, Green Energy, Oil

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/bidens-energy-department-funnels-
millions-to-beijing-backed-green-energy-company/

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Biden's Energy Department Funnels Millions to Beijing-Backed Green Energy Company zinn <zinn@reno.us> - 2022-12-20 11:00 +0000

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