WASHINGTON, D.C. – In case you missed it, Senator Rick Scott and Representative Bill Posey are demanding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo investigate whether Chinese solar companies under investigation for illegally circumventing U.S. trade law helped power a Chinese surveillance balloon before it was shot down.

In the letter to the secretaries, Senator Scott and Representative Posey note they are moving forward with bipartisan legislation that utilizes the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse the damage done by the Solar Emergency Declaration. It is believed this declaration may have possibly undermined economic and national security by protecting Chinese solar manufacturers that are not only illegally violating U.S. trade law, but also advancing the surveillance activities of the Chinese military and intelligence agencies. Below is an excerpt from the Washington Examiner article:

“In the letter, Scott and Posey argued that an emergency rule intended to quell a nervous solar industry could be shielding companies linked to Beijing’s spy balloon fleet. The lawmakers also asked whether the Biden administration would take action against Chinese panel manufacturers violating U.S. trade laws intended to level the playing field for American workers.

‘Not only is the Biden administration protecting Chinese solar companies and allowing them to continue illegal trade activity without consequence, but the administration is also quite possibly protecting the very same companies providing solar panels that are powering Chinese spy balloons,’ Scott and Posey write.

Scott and Posey said the event raises major questions about whether the administration’s solar policy is undermining national security ‘by protecting Chinese solar manufacturers that are not only illegally violating U.S. trade law, but also advancing the surveillance activities of the Chinese military and intelligence agencies.’

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In the letter, Scott and Posey ask if the administration has determined whether the panels that helped operate the balloon were manufactured by a company with known trade violations and whether the Pentagon has panels in use by the same company.

The episode has stirred questions about Beijing’s surveillance programs and Washington’s willingness to respond to even the most visible incursions. Now, Scott and Posey are urging the Biden administration to connect the dots between China’s trade violations made possibly by the government’s use of industrial subsidies and its aerial spy program.”

Read the full article in The Washington Examiner HERE and the full letter HERE.

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