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Former EPA Chief Of Staff Mandy Gunasekara Warns Biden’s Push For Electric Vehicles Is Major Boost For China

[Screenshot Fox Business]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Chief of Staff Mandy Gunasekara warned Monday on Fox Business that the Chinese Communist Party is the real benefactor of President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle push.

The EPA proposed a new limit on auto emissions that would reportedly require approximately two-thirds of new passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2032, CNN reported citing sources familiar with the matter.

Gunasekara said the proposal is likely illegal, arguing the EPA does not have “the authority to outright ban technologies that they simply don’t like because of political reasons.”

“Is anyone concerned about national security? Because 80% of cobalt is refined in China, 60% of lithium is refined and manufactured in China. So we’re outsourcing American energy independence to China at a time when they’re saber-rattling. They’re gonna go to war with Taiwan. They’re talking about going to war with us. They’re calling us enemies. Does anyone care about that issue at the EPA?” host Sean Duffy asked.

“We certainly cared in the Trump Administration when we instituted the America first policy approach to energy development and environmental protection,” Gunasekara said. “Under the Biden Administration we’ve seen time and time again their willingness to sell out the American economy and our natural interests just to comply with their green new deal dreams.” (RELATED: GOP Senators Move To Undo Biden EPA’s ‘Onerous’ Trucking Emissions Rules)

“It is the CCP, not the American people, that stand to benefit from this latest EV mandate because the electric vehicle batteries, the majority of the critical minerals that go into those batteries are owned by the Chinese Communist Party. We’re talking about environmental degradation here but they also ignore basic humanitarian standards and they rely on both force and child labor to deliver these critical minerals to market,” she added.

The Biden administration recently gave California the green light to move forward with a set of regulations that would eventually result in a statewide ban on diesel-powered heavy duty trucks after 2045 and would require more than half of diesel trucks be electric by 2035.