Commentary: Solar Company Benefiting from IRA Has Forced Labor Problem

Solar Panel Installation

Vice President Kamala Harris was “proud to cast the tie-breaking vote” for the Inflation Reduction Act. Would she be proud if her administration’s solar subsidies fund supported forced labor in China?

That may be the case with Hanwha Qcells, a South Korean solar company operating in Georgia. Bloomberg recently reported that two Chinese suppliers of the company obtained polysilicon for solar panel components from companies sanctioned by the U.S. government for employing forced Uyghur labor. Hanwha and their Qcells plant leadership deny these allegations, but Bloomberg reports “that the company offers assurances but no public details of its polysilicon sourcing.”

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House Republicans Raise Alarm over China’s Potential Use of U.S. Funds in Military Research

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers

House Republicans are urging the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan watchdog, to investigate what safeguards the National Institutes of Health has in place to ensure China does not use research funds to bolster its military or unethically use humans in research studies.

“Recent reports have raised concerns about the NIH’s ability to screen for national security issues,” the Republicans, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wa., wrote in a letter Tuesday to Government Accountability Office Comptroller Gene Dodaro.

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