Ernst, Barrasso Demand Answers on Report of DOE Sending Taxpayer-Funded Technology to China

 U.S. Senators Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, sent a letter to Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General Teri Donaldson requesting answers on a report showing DOE illegally sent $15 million of taxpayer-funded advanced battery technology to Communist China.

The letter was spurred by a report in August from NPR which detailed the hand-off of the groundbreaking battery technology from the DOE to Communist China, and the agency’s resistance to issuing battery licenses to American companies. In the letter, the senators stress that it is in America’s economic and national security interest for DOE to review this misconduct. They highlight that a failure to crack down on these violations has led to one of our biggest adversaries becoming the global leader in the manufacture of this advanced battery technology.