Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., decried on Newsmax that President Joe Biden has invoked a wartime law, the Defense Production Act (DPA), to purchase Chinese solar panel parts.
Citing an earlier appearance from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre Johnson rhetorically asks in his "Stinchfield" appearance, "what emergency has been declared for Biden to utilize the Defense Production Act?"
"I think this is a lawless act by this administration," Johnson says. "But they have the media in their back pocket, and they can pretty well rely on the fact that the media is going to back him up."
The DPA, first authorized in 1950 as a response to the Korean War, gave the president and the executive branch, the authority to order private businesses to focus on the production of a needed good.
According to Forbes, the Biden administration Monday moved to institute a two-year pause on the imposition of further "tariffs and duties on imported Chinese solar panels," in a move that U.S. manufacturers say is ushering in unwanted competition from questionable parties.
Earlier this year, Biden also used the DPA to boost the production of electric vehicle batteries — a motive in alignment with his administration's agenda to make half of all new car sales electric by 2030.
In January of 2021, according to ABC, Biden, in one of his first acts as president, issued executive orders to cut the leasing of gas and oil drilling permits on U.S. lands. But on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told CNN that there is little more the White House can do to curb record-high gas prices.
"Unfortunately," Raimondo says, "that is the brutal reality."
"The administration," Johnson says, "has done everything it could to increase the price of energy and lead to record gasoline prices."
"I'll give him credit, at least on these issues, they are admitting they have a problem," Johnson continued. "Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas ... won't even admit that the open border is a problem."
"But if you're going to actually solve the problem, you have to understand what the root cause is. They'll never admit that, because the root cause is Joe Biden, his administration, the radical leftists."
Johnson also cites the president's cognitive decline, adding he should have never ran for president.
"This didn't just happen," Johnson concluded.
"This is a direct result" of the Biden administration policies "designed to increase the cost of energy so everybody would convert to electric vehicles."
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