U.S. President Joe Biden may have to decide this week whether to overturn an International Trade Commission ruling against SK Innovation and, thus, save thousands of jobs in northeast Georgia.
More than 2,500 Georgia jobs are at stake at this Electric Vehicle (EV) battery plant in Commerce.
SK Innovation is based out of South Korea.
Reuters reported this week that Biden has until Sunday to reverse the ITC. As The Georgia Star News reported last month, Gov. Brian Kemp formally requested that Biden do just that.
According to Reuters, Georgia needs Biden to act.
“Unless the White House intervenes, SK says the ITC ruling would force it to halt construction on a $2.6-billion factory in Georgia, where two newly-elected Democratic Senators are the linchpin of Biden’s slim Democratic Congressional majority,” the news agency said.
As The Star reported, the ITC issued a decision preventing SKI from importing battery parts and components for 10 years. This is subject to a limited exception to allow the company to produce batteries at the plant for Ford for four years and VW for two years. SKI has told Georgia officials that the ITC ruling will make it impossible for the plant to have economic viability and, absent action by Biden to disapprove the ITC ruling, SKI will have to shutter the Commerce facility.
Kemp, in a letter to Biden, said this plant “represents the largest foreign investment in my state’s history at nearly $2.6 billion.”
“When completed, this factory will account for nearly half of our nation’s vitally needed non-captive EV batteries, which will be available for purchase by EV manufacturers on the free market,” Kemp wrote.
“The plant’s initial yearly output will supply 22 GWh of EV battery capacity, which is enough battery capacity for 330,000 electric cars and there are plans for it to expand to employ more than 6,000 workers and produce 50 GWh annually by 2025. The factory is owned by the Korean company, SK Innovation (“SKI”), and will be the only major EV battery plant in the nation to have been built without federal subsidies.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
