Gotion Update: Senate sends another letter of concern over security about Gotion.
As noted above US Senator Marco Rubio and other Congressmen including Illinois Congressman Mike Bost sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen over security concerns with Gotion. In that letter, they noted the following:
It is clear that the CCP deliberately obscures its control and influence over Guoxuan, and thus Gotion, through this complex ownership structure.
The extent of the CCP’s control over Guoxuan is explicitly mentioned in the company’s corporate by-laws, which require the company “to carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the [Chinese Communist Party].” In 2021, Guoxuan High-Tech hosted several company retreats where employees were mandated to recite a pledge of loyalty to the Party, including to “fight for communism.” This is concerning, no less because the Biden Administration itself has described the PRC in its 2022 National Security Strategy as the “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it,” and that “Beijing frequently uses its economic power to coerce countries.”
In the interest of U.S. national security, we respectfully request you conduct an immediate CFIUS review, and if necessary, order the divestment of Gotion, Inc by Guoxuan High-Tech and its CCP owners.
No Transparency with the Pritzker Slush Fund – The Gotion Deal was an All-Democrat Deal.
The vote to put the slush fund in place was only voted for by Democrats. In the final stages of the lame duck session, Governor Pritzker got $400 million transferred from the General Revenue Fund for his Large Business Attraction Fund as part of SB1720, passed on January 9, 2023. The vote was only supported by Democrats in the Senate and House. The bill also increased legislator pay by 16 percent which is likely another reason it was opposed. But the deal closing fund was controversial, by itself, because any deal using money from this fund need only be approved by the Senate President and the Speaker of the House.
At the time of passage, Crains reported the following:
Other concerns have been raised about what kind of oversight lawmakers will have to prevent abuse of the fund.
A spokesman for the Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity testified there is no oversight in some states that have such funds. Zalewski said the latest amendment to the plan requires the leaders of the General Assembly—the House speaker and Senate president—to be notified when a deal is imminent and when it is agreed to by the governor.
The new House GOP Leader, Tony McCombie, said Republican leaders and not just Democrats should be notified, too, and was one of four votes in committee against the bill. Zalewski replied that such deals often move in a hurry and that the heads of the two chambers will be in the loop.
So the Democrats alone decide who gets the largest special business subsidies in the state. They alone pick who they want taxpayers to support. And they chose the Chinese Communists with massive human rights violations and who we know steal American technology.
Initial EV Battery Technology Was American and Paid for by US Taxpayers.
Ten years ago Republicans were concerned about the transfer of battery technology to a Chinese company. Multiple articles from 2013, during the Obama-Biden administration, detail concerns over the sale of A123 to Chinese company Wanxiang.
Reuters wrote: “Technology produced by A123 and funded by U.S. taxpayers should not simply be shipped off to China so that the military applications for these materials can be reproduced abroad,” said a statement from Sen
ator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota.
Thune and Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, called on CFIUS to give a full briefing on the A123 review.
A123 received its U.S. government funds, which it used to build manufacturing plants in Michigan, as part of a $90 billion program to promote clean energy.”
But here we go again, subsidizing our economic, political, and military adversary.
No Transparency from Local Leaders Either.
At Breakthrough Ideas, we have been in contact with a local group opposed to the Gotion deal. And one concerned citizen sent us this photo from the protest during the press conference announcing the deal.
Daily Caller wrote that:
The multi-billion dollar deal, which Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced on Sept. 8, was hashed out behind closed doors and without any public input, according to over a dozen Manteno residents who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“There was absolutely no public participation or notification that this was going [on],” Darrel Bruck Jr., a longtime resident of Manteno who runs an informational group called “Outrage of Kankakee County,” told the DCNF. “There were probably 200 people [at the announcement], but the public was not invited. It was strictly for local politicians, the mayor, some local people who owned land and will make a lot of money off strip malls and such.
Manteno Mayor Tim Nugent had been involved in discussions with Gotion Inc. and the Illinois government from at least December 2022, he said in an Aug. 23 Kankakee County meeting. Nugent also said he spoke with individual council members about the deal behind closed doors despite the project receiving massive tax incentives from the county, which he referred to as an “intergovernmental agreement between certain Kankakee County taxing districts and officials,” according to a recording of an Aug. 7 meeting.”
The deal to lock in Gotion’s property taxes for 30 years was apparently made behind closed doors. While they will be paying double the current amount for the property, there is little that the public can see to find out if that is a good or bad deal for the residents. Likely, it is bad, but no one knows for sure when the government hides details.
Absurd Statements from ComEd and Nicor Leaders.
The press conference announcing the Gotion deal included comments from the CEO of ComEd, Gil Quiniones and Nicor CEO, Wendall Dallas.
Quiniones announced that ComEd will build Gotion a new substation to support their plant and it would be powered by clean energy. He should have said ratepayers will pay for the new substation and the majority of power coming from the grid will be from natural gas and coal as the generation comes from the PJM market. While nuclear power in Illinois generates over 50% of the electricity in the ComEd region, the power just goes to the grid and overall that grid is supplied most of the time with natural gas, nuclear, and coal generation, in that order. That plant will not run on wind and solar or even just wind, solar, and nuclear power. What a complete lie! Download the PJM Now app on your phone and check the generation mix any time of day.
Dallas announced that anything Gotion needs Nicor will be there to support and that they are ready to deliver natural gas for the initial load and will build the infrastructure needed for the expanding load. That should have elicited belly laughs from Prtizker, Welch, and Harmon who are waging a war on fossil fuels, have a plan to get rid of natural gas in Illinois no later than 2045 (if not sooner), and who prefer an all-electric future where gas stoves, gas dryers, and gas anything go to the garbage dump. And again, Nicor ratepayers are the ones that will pay for infrastructure upgrades. They think you are stupid, so they say stupid things like this.