Panasonic North America, whose parent company in July announced a joint venture with Toyota to buy lithium from a mine in Nevada to produce EV batteries, retained Monument Advocacy last month to lobby on domestic EV battery manufacturing and development policies. The issue has been driving a number of stakeholders to K Street.
It also contains $500 million in funding to help subsidize the expansion of the critical minerals industry under the Defense Production Act. To jumpstart that supply chain within the U.S., the bill includes a number of incentives meant to help spur critical minerals processing, like a tax break allowing mining companies “to write off 10 percent of the cost of their operations if they produce any amount of” critical minerals, E&E News’ Jael Holzman reported. Combined with similar supply chain requirements for battery components, zero electric vehicles on the market in the U.S. The bill stipulates that to qualify for EV tax credits, the car in question must meet certain domestic manufacturing requirements - including that at least 40 percent of the critical minerals sourced for batteries must come from North America or a nation that is party to a U.S. producers of critical minerals like cobalt, nickel and lithium won big in the eventual legislation, even as EV makers themselves groaned. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) had not yet nixed climate issues from the reconciliation bill he was negotiating with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. It retained Vela at the beginning of July to lobby on “funding regarding development and processing of critical minerals essential to electric vehicle battery manufacturing,” according to a newly filed disclosure. Missouri Cobalt is in the process of building a new hydrometallurgical facility near its Fredericktown, Mo., mine that it says will help produce large-scale quantities of cobalt and nickel for batteries.
Filemon Vela of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld to help the company secure federal funding likely to flow more easily now that President Joe Biden has signed Democrats’ climate spending package. CRITICAL MINERS LOBBY UP AHEAD OF BOON FROM RECONCILIATION BILL: A Missouri mining company that produces critical minerals used in electric vehicle batteries has hired former Rep.