Florida Rep. Mike Waltz (R) has directed a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormouth, questioning the Army’s climate strategy. In the letter, Waltz shares his concern over supply chains for critical minerals and elements that are needed to implement the Biden Administration’s 2022 Army Climate Strategy.
In a statement, Waltz questioned that “if the Biden Administration is importing renewable energy technology from China for the U.S. Army, then we need immediate answers as to why we are funding our own demise.” He adds that the United States’ “military should not be dependent on our greatest adversary for the critical minerals and elements that Secretary Wormouth is dead set on making our Army reliant on.”
In the letter, Waltz addresses the Biden administration’s efforts to go green, arguing that it poses a great threat to the country because it relies on China.
“China controls over 80 percent of solar panel production and 95 percent of elements needed to produce such products,” he explains, noting that “China also produces three-quarters of all lithium-ion batteries in the world and has a near monopoly of the supply chain of rare earth minerals critical to manufacture rechargeable batteries.”
As such, Waltz poses several questions for Wormouth to provide answers for: Can the Army confirm that the solar panels installed at any Army facilities are not made in China? and can the Army confirm that components for these solar panels did not originate from China? Moreover, Waltz also questions if the Army requires its solar energy component suppliers certify that forced labor from the XUAR was not used in any component of the solar panel module as well as inquiring that “given the Department of Commerce’s investigation on Chinese solar module component tariff circumvention, will the Army investigate the supply chain of the solar panels installed at Army installations to ensure they weren’t sourced from XUAR?”
