Pres. Obama Says Stimulus Funds Responsible for Battery Progress

“You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America. Our goal has never been to create a government program, but rather to unleash private-sector growth. And we’re seeing results.”- President Barack Obama

President Obama was in Michigan last week to tout the groundbreaking of a battery factory that received $151 million in federal funding. In the process, Pres. Obama made sure everyone was well aware of the “tens of thousands of American jobs” that have come out of federal battery investments.

According to an Energy Department report released last week, the $2.4 billion in grant money provided to advanced battery and vehicle manufacturing had been matched by participating companies “at minimum dollar for dollar.” The report claimed that the United States produced only 2 percent of the world’s E.V. batteries before the Recovery Act, but will have the capacity to produce 20 percent by 2012 and as much as 40 percent by 2015. The report also said that all nine of the battery plants opening as a result of stimulus funds had broken ground and four would be up and running by the end of this year.

“I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this country would not be better off if this plant had not gotten built and if the Clean Energy package that made it possible wasn’t in place,” said President Obama. “And when you head out to any of the two dozen battery-technology plants coming online that are going to be able to stamp ‘Made in America’ on their products, I want folks who have been pushing against these economic policies to explain to the workers why it would be better for these things to be manufactured in other countries.”