Congress Advances Bill in House to Ban Chinese Batteries

The Old Senate Chamber in the Capitol

A bill aimed at cutting major Chinese battery manufacturers out of the Department of Homeland Security’s supply chain advanced in the House  of Representatives on Wednesday.

The bill, which originated in the House Homeland Security Committee, has strong bipartisan support and appears likely to pass.

The proposed legislation, the Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependence Act, was sponsored by Congressman Carlos Gimenez of Florida.  If the bill becomes law, it would block the DHS from procuring batteries from six Chinese companies – Contemporary Amperex Technology, BYD, Envision Energy, Eve Energy, Gotion High Tech, Hithium Energy Storage Technology –  over concerns about potential human rights abuses, as well as supply chain and cybersecurity concerns.

The goal of the bill appears to be to create transparency in the Department of Homeland Security’s supply chain, one member of the House said.

“One of the things we are doing in the House is taking a look at where we intersect with China, [and] where we rely on China more than we should,” said Congressman Laurel Lee to reporters on Wednesday. “When it comes to batteries and technology, we want to be sure that the components of the products that we are using are safe, and that we are not inadvertently exposing ourselves to some of the bad behaviors that we’ve seen from the Chinese Communist Party, including the interception of trade secrets and the inappropriate use of our intellectual property and our technology.”

The new legislation comes on the heels of a similar ban blocking the Department of Defense from buying batteries from the same six companies. That ban is already slated to go into effect on October 1, 2027.

(Photo: Accura Media Group)