A green energy company with close ties to the White House is among the first companies to take advantage of tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Democrats’ flagship climate package.
Form Energy — a Massachusetts-based company that has developed a utility-scale iron-air battery system — announced in December, just four months after Congress passed and the President signed the IRA, that it would invest up to $760 million to build a factory in Weirton, West Virginia. The factory was among the first clean energy projects to benefit directly from the IRA and announced by the White House.
“These investments are creating good-paying jobs, including union jobs and jobs that don’t require a four-year degree in industries that will strengthen US competitiveness, rebuild infrastructure, strengthen supply chain, and will help build a clean energy economy,” it stated. a March White House fact sheet highlighting private sector investments in West Virginia including Form Energy’s.
Congress passed the IRA largely along party lines in August 2022. The legislation, heralded by Democrats as the crowning achievement of the Biden administration, was largely able to pass the Senate as a result of West Virginia Democratic support. Sen. Joe Manchin.
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President Biden acted to give Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., the pen he used to sign the Inflation Reduction Act on August 16 at the White House. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“West Virginia continues to be a leader in energy innovation, and the good-paying jobs and new economic opportunities this will bring are exactly what I had in mind as I negotiated the Inflation Reduction Act,” said Manchin on Dec. 22, the day of the announcement.
Meanwhile, Form Energy has raised $450 million in private funding thanks, in large part, to IRA tax credits, Form Energy CEO Mateo Jaramillo told The Wall Street Journal last year, adding that the law “makes everyone feel more confident.” A major investor in the battery maker is Breakthrough Energy, the green energy investment company of billionaire Bill Gates.
The IRA, which includes a a staggering $369 billion on climate investments, provides tax relief for clean energy factories built on former sites of dirty energy facilities and for battery storage projects like those proposed by Form Energy. The company’s factory is slated to be built on the site of a shut-down steel mill.
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“After a year-long nationwide site selection process that began with identifying more than 500 candidate locations in 16 states, it became clear that Weirton, West Virginia – a historic steel community located on a river and has a rich heritage and knowledge. of making beautiful things out of steel – the perfect location for our first commercial battery production factory,” Jaramillo said in a statement at the time.
President Biden has aggressively pushed clean energy as part of his climate agenda. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
However, on Nov. 9, more than a month before the announcement, Jaramillo visited the White House to meet privately with Kristina Costa, the deputy director of the White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, visitor logs showed. Costa was tapped for the position by White House clean energy czar John Podesta that President Biden chose to oversee IRA enforcement in early September.
In addition to Jaramillo, Nidhi Thakar, Form Energy’s vice president of policy and regulation; Michael Carr, a partner at green energy lobbying and consulting firm Boundary Stone; and Yogin Kothari, a senior vice president at Boundary Stone, were also present at the meeting.
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Form Energy paid $200,000 to Carr and Kothari last year to lobby for the company’s policy priorities, according to federal lobbying disclosures.
And Thakar previously served as co-chair of Clean Energy for Biden, an organization founded to help President Biden get elected in 2020, according to archived copies of the group’s website that have since been scrubbed. . In August 2021, Thakar and Podesta were named to the board of directors of Clean Energy for America, a group “committed to advancing an equitable and inclusive clean energy economy.”
Thakar and Jaramillo also attended the IRA signing ceremony at the White House on September 13. Also, on October 24, Thakar attended the White House Diwali reception.
White House Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation Deputy Director Kristina Costa spoke on a panel in 2019. Costa met with Form Energy executives and lobbyists in November. (C-SPAN 2/Video screenshot)
However, a White House spokesman said the Biden administration was not involved in Form Energy’s selection process for its West Virginia factory.
“The White House was not involved in this decision and did not encourage any site selection,” White House spokesman Michael Kikukawa told Fox News Digital. “This is an independent decision by a private company based on its own placement process and investment requirements.”
“We are proud that the President’s Investing in America agenda—including the Inflation Reduction Act—is unleashing private sector investments in communities across the country,” Kikukawa added.
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Kikukawa also noted that Form Energy is not the first company to announce a project enabled by the Inflation Reduction Act.
White House climate czar John Podesta speaks at a White House electrification summit on December 14. Podesta serves on the board of Clean Energy for America along with Form Energy Vice President Nidhi Thakar. (White House Screenshot/Video)
“The White House was not involved in any decision-making capacity in the placement of Form,” Form Energy spokeswoman Sarah Bray told Fox News Digital. “We conducted an exhaustive site selection process for the location of our first high-volume battery manufacturing facility, and Weirton, West Virginia came back as the clear choice for the many reasons noted.”
“Both Senator Manchin and Senator Capito support bringing our battery manufacturing facility to the State of West Virginia; when it is in full operation, it will employ 750 people with an average salary of at least $63,000 a year,” he said.
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Bray added that Thakar’s role at Clean Energy for Biden preceded his work at Form Energy and that his role at Clean Energy for America will be held in a “personal capacity outside of his position at Form Energy.” Bray also said that the November meeting at the White House between Thakar, Jaramillo, Carr, Kothari and Costa was largely about the development of Form Energy technology.
A spokeswoman for Manchin said the West Virginia lawmaker was excited to celebrate the battery factory last year, but would not comment on his involvement in the project.
“Senator Manchin never misses an opportunity to highlight the abundant resources and resilient workforce that West Virginia offers prospective businesses,” Sam Runyon, a spokesman for Manchin, told Fox News Digital. “Form Energy is no exception and he is excited that they have decided to expand their footprint in Weirton.”
And Mitch Carmichael, the secretary of West Virginia’s Department of Economic Development, said the state has worked to attract Form Energy’s investment, but the state has not contacted the White House.
“I’m personally just thrilled about this deal,” Carmichael said in an interview. “I had to do it a million different ways in putting this transaction together. So, we’re very pleased with it. But we didn’t make it to the White House.”
