The Biden administration's energy policy is an "absolute tragedy" for not only the United States' energy producers, "but more importantly, American consumers," including a $200 million grant it has awarded to a lithium battery company with close ties with China, former Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Sunday.
"Go on Google, pull these people up," Perry, also a former governor of Texas, told Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo. "I mean, this doesn't take you long to find out that they are directly associated with and controlled by the Communist Party of China."
The money from the infrastructure bill, he added, "is supposed to be creating national security for America, jobs for Americans, and it's being controlled by a communist country and their tentacles into these companies."
The Department of Energy announced the grant for Microvast, which has several manufacturing bases in China, the U.K., and Germany in October. The company, though, says on its Facebook page that it is headquartered in Texas.
Perry said he hopes that members of the Senate, on both sides, will look at the agreement and consider that it is "unacceptable" for money to be sent to such companies and lawmakers will start calling for Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm's resignation.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has pulled supplies from the Strategic National Reserve to bring gas prices down, and Perry accused him of using it as his "personal piggy bank."
"There are a lot better ways than selling our petroleum reserve to drive down the cost," said Perry, such as opening the country's "substantial ability" to produce oil and gas.
"That's simple economics right there," said Perry, noting that as a former governor of a Gulf Coast state, he knows the importance of having the reserves in the event of a natural disaster such as a hurricane.
"When [Hurricane] Sandy hit, the petroleum reserve was used to help fill the void," said Perry. "What if we have another event like that, a natural disaster that in turn turns into a national disaster because of the loss of that fuel?"