OPINION:
A public meeting in Pataskala, Ohio — a small town east of Columbus — focused on a new factory in town was held this week. This particular factory is not much different from other factories, except that it makes solar panels, and one of the companies that built and operates it is LONGi, a company based in China with all kinds of ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Keep in mind the regime in Beijing — which has been declared genocidal by both the Biden and Trump administrations — owns, controls or processes about 80% of the materials that go into solar panels.
Two experts at the meeting, Nate Picarsic and Emily deLaBruyere, were from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. They patiently explained that the involvement of the Chinese Communist Party in this factory inevitably meant that the factory — like all economic investments by China — would ultimately and probably immediately be used to further the military, political and economic purposes of the regime in Beijing.
Most who attended the meeting know that something isn’t right and their new neighbors aren’t good guys. This project, a partnership between Invenergy and LONGi that has been structured such that the American company technically has majority ownership, is shot through with Chinese Communist Party influence.
The partnership, which apparently involves the American company contributing the building while LONGi does the rest, is designed to ensure that the partners can fully access hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, which, at least notionally, requires that some of what is manufactured or built has some nexus with American companies.
It is also clear that an outfit called JobsOhio is part of the problem. It is shipping $4 million to the partnership. What makes that worse is that JobsOhio gets its money through an arrangement constructed by former Gov. John Kasich in which the profits of the liquor industry flow to JobsOhio, which in turn “invests” in projects it deems worthwhile. Despite being a creature of the state, JobsOhio has no meaningful oversight, which gives it the flavor of a slush fund for well-connected former politicians.
The most discouraging part of the meeting was the absence of elected officials. The town has given the partnership favorable tax treatment in the form of a 15-year tax abatement on its over 1 million-square-foot site and has tried to sell the idea that the factory is needed for jobs. The truth is, of course, that the area — like much of the United States — has no unemployment and actually suffers from the reverse problem of having too many jobs chasing too few workers.
The mayor of Pataskala knows all this and probably knows that agreeing to host the factory is not a good idea. But like many of us, he just can’t admit he made a mistake.
During and after the meeting, the people of Pataskala kept asking what could be done. The easy answer is that if we are serious about reducing the dominance of China in energy supply chains, we need to restructure the tax provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act to prevent our adversaries from receiving American taxpayer cash.
Similarly, states and localities need to stop feeding the regime in Beijing with cash from their taxpayers.
The good news is that the people of Pataskala understand that they are on the front lines of an economic, political and cultural war with hundreds of battles, large and small, that we must win. It is a shame that their elected officials don’t seem to get that elemental truth.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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