'What Do You Say To That?': Chip Roy Presses AOC About Child Labor In Mining For EVs

chairwoman um uh my friend Mr Westerman just a couple quick questions the uh ranking members talked about uh somehow this is good for you know individuals who are quote polluters um I know at least one of the bills we're talking about is um important with respect to the uh duth complex right um and that that would um it could constitute a sizable portion I've got 88% down in my notes but I know it's a very large percent of the Cobalt reserves in the United States uh currently were highly dependent on China for um Cobalt correct very dependent on China for Cobalt and many other um minerals and Rare Earth elements uh and is it not true that the Biden Administration with its uh senseless uh job killing uh hardworking American uh life dest destroying uh tailpipe uh rule that will stack up uh more mandates on uh electric vehicle production uh to the tune of something like 2third of the production by 2030 uh that while meanwhile EVS are piling up on the lots of automobile dealerships across the country um that in light of that that even if one were to say that we should be moving towards electric vehicles which I think is a reasonable question debate in and of itself would it not be foolish to do that on the back of Chinese production and Chinese Cobalt mining I believe so and I think you've done a great job of outlining what I would call Democrat Utopia we're going to have our cake and eat it too we're going to get rid of fossil fuel we're going to get rid of internal combustion engine vehicles uh we're going to everybody's going to drive an EV and we're not going to mine anything to uh create the components that go into that EV or to uh strengthening the Grid or to building uh wind and solar and more distributed electrical systems uh and it just doesn't work that way it's a not in my backyard mentality that is forcing our supply chains more and more to China who has gone out and hoarded uh resources from around the world Cobalt is one you mentioned that comes from the uh from the Congo where they use child slave lab child slave labor right they haul it back to China where they refine it and by the way China built 50 gaw of coal powered plants last year that's that's one every five days so they can process the minerals and manufacture the stuff to sell to us so that we can save the planet it makes absolutely no sense um representative Casio Cortez what what do you say to that point right when we've got significant amount of evidence that um China owns the vast majority of all 80% plus of the um Cobalt mine production uh coming out of Congo Etc and we know I think it's irrefutably we have to acknowledge are not fully able to power the ability of the American public to get to their job and their work and so forth and yet we're mandating that we have 2third of the production be EVS by 2030 so if we follow those mandates by the Biden Administration uh that debate aside right debate for a different day if you follow those mandates you got to have a massive massive amount of battery production and by all indication um the vast majority of that Congo production is controlled by China a huge amount of that has child labor and other is isues that we've talked about you got traffic child slaves that are reported in the uh production of it why on Earth would we want to limit the ability of Americans to go mine Cobalt now I I might say well that's kind of great because I actually still want the internal combustion engine I actually think it's afford more affordable and better for the American worker who wants the plumber in San Marcus Texas to be able to go to work and afford the car but if you buy into the motion of having you know EVS that you can drive all over creation even if you're from Texas and you had to do like I did I appreciate the chairman point out passing of my grandma I had to drive 6 hours like 300 miles to go see my grandma Thursday before she passed away and three you know six hours back uh I couldn't do that at an EV I wouldn't have been able to make the round trip in time um but okay assume we were able to ever produce batteries that last long enough the charging stations all the stuff why would we get rid of the American production of it thank you um there are several different components to your question I want to make sure that I address them first first and foremost on the issue of child exploitation child labor I think it is the role of the United States for us to push back forcefully on on this production and not just in the production of energy but across the board we see this in textile production energy production Cobalt mining it is horrific um and we need to make sure that our sources uh do not do not include child labor but to get to your the core of the question too on the China front is that I find it interesting that there is this concern about uh Chinese ownership of minerals and it is it is legitimate however the response to that seems to be deregulation in the specifically for companies that are largely Chinese owned here in the United States these companies are subsidiaries where the benefit of what we are deregulating here and I'll give you a specific example I you know I would be remiss not to mention that the Min minerals roduced specifically at the proposed twin Metals mine that is implicated in this legislation would most likely be shipped to China for refining and smelting to be sold on the global market these are not American owned companies that this is that American minded minerals would be going to and so if your concern is the Chinese predominance of ownership in the mining uh in the mining Market I would be very concerned about passing this legislation um so that I think on the a piece there and lastly on the meeting our targets and Mining Cobalt I think it's a false choice to say that in order for us to mine Cobalt we either have to destroy some of the most sacred lands in the United States or rely on child labor there's responsible mining in the United States that is available to us um but secondly it also I also find it interesting that the majority presently pushes back against battery recycling uh which would allow us to open the path to reducing our Reliance on mining in general there is enormous potential in recycling many of these e EV batteries but we have not made the Investments or the shifts necessary in order to unlock that so that we can reduce our Reliance on on solely mining as the only source of battery thank you well I appreciate that before I give uh my my colleague a chance to respond as I think he probably wishes to um I I I would only note that um happy to have a conversation about restricting Chinese ownership of any number of uh corporate activities in the United States or ownership of farmland or ownership of land near military bases or or frankly ownership of meat packing production including mineral production and so forth significant reason why it would be mined here and shipped back is because they've got all the production facilities because they've been building and Mining these because they've got the resources to do that and here we've got the god-given uh benefit in America being able to produce very clean burning um natural gas very um efficient ability to have automobiles that have the internal combustion engine which are basically fractionally about one and a half% of the CO2 production when you compare it to what we're producing in China as the gentleman noted where they've got 1100 Coal Fired plants burning in China we have 250 and they're building two a week and we're building none and yet we're building no nuclear plants except for the Georgia plant that was finally put online 45 years after it was permitted by the nuclear Regulatory Commission so I think uh if we're if we're going to be serious about it we can't say I I just don't accept the premise that the sort of General notion of well we got to push back on the child labor well I mean we're going to use that child labor unless we find a Supply right now because the body Administration has put their foot on the gas to say we must have EVS in 2030 at the extent of two-thirds of our of our entire production line so Toyota is not a Chinese owned company but Toyota has a massive production facility in San ant anonio tells me that they will largely have to put their entire assembly line starting next year into ev's pretty much only because they can't financially afford to do otherwise with these mandates on the tailpipe rule which will be shutting down the internal combustion engine production of the Toyota vehicles no Chinese ownership there because that's where they are which will then mandate the EVS driving up the price of those vehicles and then they got to go figure out how to get the batteries and get the production uh I know the gentleman seemed like he wanted to jump in on that and so I'd like to give him a chance to respond I appreciate the opportunity to respond U so many things to talk about here and I I agree with the uh the assertation that we don't have the refining uh and the smelting capacity in the US but that's self-imposed you go back to 1995 we produced three times the copper of China and today they produce 11 times more copper than us they have 50 smelters and we have two that's another area of Regulation that forced business like that out of our country to China and they're making this the things that we need we're exporting wealth to China to build uh these these projects and we have the resources that have made this country strong and they're still here to make us strong in the future if we will just use them well I appreciate the gentlemen I will um in the interest of time uh yield back I know there's other issues here I would just I just push back on the general notion that the these uh aren't uh important pieces of legislation I mean dealing with figuring out how we're going to um uh protect our federal lands and and the the the wildlife and the ability for hunters and Anglers to use them all that stuff are all part of this legislation uh and we all share an interest in in conservation in that respect um you know look at Texas we have very little Federal ownership of land happily so um but where we have Federal lands we ought to try to manage it appropriately for good stewardship for multiple Generations including production and Amir which is a tiny tiny fraction of the footprint of the entire state of Alaska um lots of studies about Wildlife benefits and so forth but we'll put that aside for different day and I'll yield back uh my time thank you Mr Roy Miss ganin thank you madam chair uh I am very concerned that these bills are a huge step back for our environment and our endangered species um they seem to be predicated on a false kind of a binary choice and I don't think it's true that President Biden Or democrats or the American people have any interest in having a blanket prohibition on development but we all we do want a system that fairly takes into account Public Safety conservation and the damage to our environment and our children's future if we aren't taking those into consideration so um can you comment on that absolutely uh representative scanland as you noted um particularly in the public land rule uh specifically the this shift in the rule is not even even to put conservation and restoration above you know energy production Recreation or any other considerations it's simply to allow the consideration to be on equal footing and I I would I would emphatically push back on the notion that conservation is just simply cordoning off that this rule is just about conservation and cordoning off several acres of land and saying there's nothing to be done here but this is also about land restoration and there are so many acres of land federal lands public lands this is land that belongs to the people of the United States of America that has been dumped on that has been uh allowed to be overridden with toxic waste that people are getting sick from that species are becoming endangered from and to allow that to Simply Be an equal consideration as the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management dos out and makes decisions often times affirmatively about energy production I think is eminently reasonable I I think that makes a lot of sense that we're trying to balance some competing concerns but that we really do need to take into account these conservation concerns so I would yield back thank you thank you Miss ganin Mr Scott thank you madam chair I'll just be quick I mean I'm I'm thankful for the legislation on the the sports hunters and fishermen I mean I think you know the more time a child spends

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Length: 13min 31sec (811 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2024