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International

Chinese-Owned EV Company Showered Dems With Campaign Contributions

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7 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By NICK POPE

 

The U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer and its top executive have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash to Democrats in recent years.

Stella Li, a top executive for BYD Americas, and the company itself have given tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash to Democratic candidates and organizations in California and beyond over the past decade, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of federal and state political spending records. Based in China, BYD is the biggest EV producer in the world, and Congress moved in January to ban the Pentagon from buying its batteries due to security risks, according to Bloomberg News.

For example, BYD and Li gave more than $40,000 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) between 2020 and 2023, according to the DCNF’s review of political spending records. The company and Li have also poured more than $30,000 into organizations boosting President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection effort to date.

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom received about $60,000 from Li and BYD USA between 2018 and 2023. Newsom drew scrutiny for his administration’s decision to give BYD a $1 billion no-bid contract to supply protective equipment during the coronavirus pandemic despite the company’s core competency being in a different business, and Newsom subsequently took a BYD vehicle for a publicized test drive during a 2023 trip to mainland China.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa received more than $10,000 from Li to help his failed 2018 gubernatorial campaign, while the California Democratic Party received approximately $19,000 from Li and BYD USA between 2018 and 2020, according to the DCNF’s review of political spending records.

Michael Anotovich, former Chair of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and an architect of California’s bullet train project, received more than $11,000 from BYD USA and its executives in 2015 and 2016 to help his political career, according to the DCNF’s review of political spending records. Anotovich often governed in ways that benefited BYD, such as when he, along with Villaraigosa, steered millions of dollars from a Los Angeles municipal clean bus testing program toward BYD, the Los Angeles Times reported in 2018.

Additionally, BYD USA forked over $25,000 to a 501(c)(4) organization called California For Safe, Reliable Infrastructure in 2018, according to the DCNF’s review of state records. Californians For Safe, Reliable Infrastructure was an organization that opposed the failed Proposition 6 in 2018, which would have repealed a 12 cent per-gallon tax on gasoline passed the prior year and required voter approval for future tax or fee increases on gasoline. 

Ed Chau — formerly a member of the California State Assembly — raked in $7,000 from BYD USA and executives to boost his ambitions in 2018 and 2020, according to the DCNF’s political spending records review. Notably, Chau nominated Li for a “woman of the year” prize in his district in 2018.

Meanwhile, BYD USA and Li gave Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leon more than $19,000 in 2017 and 2018, according to the DCNF’s review. Notably, then- President pro Tempore of the California Senate de Leon said that “California and the rest of the nation needs more companies like BYD that take opportunities presented by policy and turn it in to job creation” regarding the 2017 ribbon cutting ceremony for BYD USA’s expansion of its Lancaster, California manufacturing facility.

BYD is one of the biggest EV manufacturers in the world, though its Americas subsidiary focuses specifically on electric trucks, forklifts, and buses, according to its website. The company is reportedly examining options for penetrating the U.S. EV market by way of Mexico, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently-finalized tailpipe emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles may end up benefiting BYD USA in the long-term, according to analysis by HEATMAP, a climate-focused publication.

The company has expanded its presence around the world in recent years under the “impetus” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), according to a 2018 paper published in Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research. The BRI is a $1 trillion Chinese government effort to build infrastructure projects and accrue economic influence in other countries that is “widely recognized as an economic power play that could challenge U.S. influence geopolitically,” according to the Jamestown Foundation.

Additionally, BYD is touted in several articles posted to an official Chinese government website called “Belt and Road Portal.”

Moreover, Congress has specifically flagged the company in two separate National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA). The 2020 NDAA contained a provision that banned public funds going to boost China-linked transportation companies like and including BYD, according to The Washington Post, and the NDAA that passed in December 2023 prohibits the Pentagon from buying batteries made by BYD and five other Chinese companies starting in 2027, according to Bloomberg.

The offices of Newsom, Ma, de Leon, BYD USA, the DNC, the California Democratic Party, ActBlue, and the Biden campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Anotovich could not be reached for comment, and Villaraigosa’s current employer did not respond to a request for comment on his behalf, nor did the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, on which Chau now sits.

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Energy

Kamala Harris is still for banning fracking—as is everyone who advocates the net-zero agenda

Published on

From Energy Talking Points

By Alex Epstein

Myth: Kamala Harris used to be for banning fracking, but now she supports fracking.

Truth: Kamala Harris is still for banning fracking—because she is still for the net-zero agenda that requires banning fracking along with all other fossil fuel activities.

  • Kamala Harris, who in 2019 said, “There is no question I am in favor of banning fracking,” now tells voters in fracking-dependent states like Pennsylvania that she is no longer wants to ban fracking.They shouldn’t believe her, since Harris’s net-zero agenda requires banning fracking.¹
  • To know what to make of Harris’s reversal on a fracking ban, we need to first recognize that banning fracking would have been one of the most harmful policies in US history. It would have destroyed 60% of our oil production and 75% of our natural gas production.²
  • Fracking is very likely the single most beneficial technological development of the last 25 years. By extracting cheap, abundant oil and natural gas from once useless rock, it has made energy far cheaper than it would otherwise be.
  • Fracking and agriculture: The availability of food is highly determined by the cost of oil, which powers crucial machinery, and gas, which is the basis of the fertilizer that allows us to feed 8 billion people. Thanks to fracking, the world is far better fed than it would otherwise be.
  • Given how life-giving fracking is to humanity and how essential it is to the prosperity and security of the US, any politician who has ever suggested banning fracking should be considered an energy menace until and unless they issue a deeply reflective apology.
  • Harris and others who have advocated banning fracking should apologize along the following lines: “I called for banning something crucial because I listened only to exaggerated claims about its negatives and ignored its huge benefits. I am deeply sorry, and pledge to do better.”
  • Someone who comes to understand why it’s wrong to ban fracking—because the benefits you would destroy are far greater than the harms you would avoid—should also understand that the same problem exists with the broader anti-fossil-fuel, “net zero” agenda.
  • Harris has not apologized whatsoever for her support of a murderous fracking ban.And far from questioning the anti-fossil-fuel, “net zero” agenda, she has remained 100% committed to it.

    Which means she’s an enemy of not just fracking but all fossil fuel use.

  • The guiding energy goal of Biden/Harris is “net zero by 2050”—rapidly banning activities that add CO2 to the atmosphere.Since there’s no scalable way to capture CO2, burning fossil fuels necessarily means more CO2.

    “Net zero” = “ban most fossil fuel use”—including fracking.³

  • Given that “net zero by 2050” requires banning virtually all fossil fuel activity, the whole conversation about whether Kamala Harris wants to ban fracking is absurd.You can’t be for fracking and for net-zero anymore than you can be for penicillin and for banning all antibiotics.
  • For “net zero by 2050” advocates there’s no question of if they want to ban particular fossil fuel activities such as fracking in the next 25 years, just when and in what order.If Harris doesn’t try to ban fracking soon she’ll just try to ban other vital fossil fuel activities.
  • The Biden-Harris administration has already shown us that they will try to do everything they can to ban fossil fuels in pursuit of net-zero—and that they will only be limited by pro-fossil-fuel political opponents’ opposition and the resistance of voters.
  • Both Biden and Harris made it clear when campaigning that their guiding energy goal was “net zero by 2050” and that meant rapidly banning fossil fuels.Biden: “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel.” Harris’s cosponsored Green New Deal called for banning fossil fuels.⁴
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  • When they entered office, Biden and Harris continued to make “net zero by 2050” their guiding goal by rejoining the Paris Agreement that committed us to it and by announcing a “whole of government” focus on “climate”—code for: rapidly getting rid of fossil fuels.⁵
  • In action after action, the Biden-Harris administration has shown us that it will do anything it can get away with politically to rapidly eliminate fossil fuels: pipeline blocking, Federal leasing bans, LNG prohibitions, power plant shutdowns, EV mandates, SEC rules, etc, etc.

    8 ways the Biden administration is working to increase gasoline prices

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    The Biden administration claims that draining the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve shows its commitment to low gas prices.

     

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  • Americans have already paid a high price for the Biden-Harris administration’s net-zero agenda—high energy bills, power shortages, and inflation.But we’d be paying a far higher price had pro-fossil-fuel politicians and voters not opposed and dramatically slowed the agenda.⁶
  • Most of what Biden-Harris have tried to do to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use has been, thankfully, slowed by opposition: lawsuits over power plant shutdowns, courts reversing illegal leasing bans, etc.Without this opposition they would have already caused energy ruin.⁷
  • Consider: America desperately needs more reliable power plants given huge demand from AI and (Biden-mandated) EVs.But the Biden-Harris EPA has tried to shut down all coal—1/6 of reliable capacity!

    Were it not for Biden-Harris opponents we’d already have a 3rd-world grid.⁸

    How EPA’s power plant rule will destroy our grid

    ·
    May 22
    How EPA's power plant rule will destroy our grid
     

    4 reasons EPA’s power plant rule will destroy our grid:

     

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  • Harris tries to act reassure us that she’s “moderate” because Biden-Harris hasn’t destroyed oil and gas—e.g., fracking is allowed and oil production has actually increased.But that’s because opposition has moderated her insanely destructive net-zero ambitions.
  • The only way Kamala Harris can validly convince the public that she’s not an energy threat is to renounce not only her support of a fracking ban but of the “net zero” agenda—and to correct the anti-fossil-fuel bias that leads to both of these murderous policy ideas.
  • Whenever you hear a politician claim to be a friend of oil and gas, fracking, or any other aspect of fossil fuels, ask one simple question: Do you renounce the “net zero” agenda?If not, they will work to destroy fossil fuels—and with them our energy, prosperity, and security.

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Daily Caller

‘Overwhelming Our Small Towns’: Ohio AG Suggests Courtroom Battle To Stop Feds Dumping Migrants In State

Published on

A scene on the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. (Screen Capture/PBS NewsHour)

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

Locals in the state have complained about migrants causing car crashes, squatting in homes, killing wildlife for food and stealing property, according to the press release. He cited the town of Springfield as an example, saying the town has “swollen by more than a third” because of the migrant influx.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced Monday that his office is investigating how to stop the Biden-Harris administration from continuing to resettle massive numbers of foreign nationals into his state.

An enormous increase in the migrant population in Ohio has taken place during the past four years of the Biden-Harris administration, leading to a strain in the state’s economic, medical and educational systems, Yost declared in a press release. Ohio’s top prosecutor says he is now directing his office to research courtroom strategies on how to stop the White House from sending an “unlimited” number of migrants into Ohio communities.

“How many people can they be expected to take?” the GOP attorney general asked. “What are the limits to the federal government’s power? Could the federal government simply funnel into Ohio all the millions of migrants flooding in under the current administration’s watch?”

“There’s got to be a limiting principle,” Yost continued. “We’re going to find a way to get this disaster in front of a federal judge.”

In addition to strained government resources, Yost alleged that locals in the state have complained about migrants causing car crashes, squatting in homes, killing wildlife for food and stealing property, according to the press release. He cited the town of Springfield as an example, saying the town has “swollen by more than a third” because of the migrant influx.

In a July letter addressed to GOP Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of Florida, the city manager of Springfield said as many as 20,000 Haitian nationals had been resettled in the town in the past four years, creating a housing crisis in a community of just under 60,000 residents. The city manager appealed to the federal government for help — saying that without further assistance, towns like Springfield would fail to meet the housing needs of its communities.

Other Springfield residents have voiced concerns.

“I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses in my front yard, throwing trash in my front yard,” one resident told the Springfield City Commission during an August meeting, according to the National Desk. The resident, referred to as Noel, said she felt “unsafe” because a number of homeless migrants were allegedly camped out in her neighborhood, and some even allegedly camped out on her yard.

“Look at me, I weigh 95 pounds,” Noel said. “I couldn’t defend myself if I had to.”

More than seven million foreign nationals have illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, according to the latest data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The White House has also allowed roughly half a million Haitians, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans into the country since January 2023 via a mass parole initiative known as the CHNV program.

“Ohio is a great place to work and live,” Yost continued on Monday. “But overwhelming our small towns with massive migrant populations without any coordination or assistance from the federal government is changing that in front of our eyes.”

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