BREAKING: 324 Workers Laid Off at Michigan Battery Plants Thanks to Trump and Republicans

This plant is the sixth project to close in Michigan in the last two months 

A new report from Climate Power reveals that Trump’s war on clean energy has canceled or delayed 158,000 clean energy jobs

Midland, MI – Midland Daily News reported that two electric vehicle battery plants in Midland and Auburn Hills, Michigan are closing their doors, eliminating 324 good-paying manufacturing jobs. This is the second factory closure to impact Auburn Hills in the last two weeks. The news comes just days after General Motors announced that it would be laying off 1,200 workers at an electric vehicle plant in Detroit, along with hundreds of permanent and temporary layoffs at battery plants in Tennessee and Ohio. 

This is the sixth time in two months that a clean energy project has closed its doors in Michigan, as Donald Trump and Republicans ramp up their attacks on clean energy. A new Climate Power report released today shows that over 158,000 jobs have already been lost or stalled in the clean energy sector, and gas and electric utilities have raised or sought to increase bills by at least $89.9 billion since Trump took office. 

Climate Power Communications Director Alex Glass issued the following statement: 

“Donald Trump’s policies are singlehandedly engineering a collapse of manufacturing projects in Michigan. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised to bring back jobs and lower costs – instead, he’s leaving Americans with higher utility bills and pink slips. Michigan Republicans will have to answer to voters for why they’ve co-signed an agenda that is sending American manufacturing jobs overseas and making daily life unaffordable” 

Trump’s reckless energy policies are leaving a trail of shuttered projects across the country:

• This week, Topsoe cited the repeal of clean energy tax credits as a reason for canceling  150 jobs and a $400 million investment in their Richmond, VA facility. 
• Earlier this month, Fox 2 Detroit reported that over 100 employees at Dana Incorporated, an EV battery component manufacturer in Auburn Hills, Michigan, had been laid off.
• General Motors canceled a $55 million factory that would have created 300 jobs, citing “decisions of the DOE”. 
• Fortescue blamed U.S. “policy settings” and the elimination of “critical tax credits” in Trump and Republicans’ budget bill for the cancellation of their $210 million Detroit EV battery factory. 
• Trump is using the government shutdown as an opportunity to sow even more chaos and uncertainty for American workers by cancelling $8 billion in investments in states that did not vote for him. The Trump administration has put $24 billion for energy projects on the chopping block since May. 
• Trump’s federal energy policies contributed to battery startup, Natron Energy, shutting down and canceling its planned $1.4 billion factory in Eastern North Carolina, which would have created 1,000 jobs. 
• Blue Ridge Power blamed insurmountable “market headwinds” impacting the renewable energy industry for their decision to lay off 517 workers in North Carolina 
• Trump planned to revoke federal permitting for a Maryland wind farm, which would have powered 718,000 homes and supported more than 1,300 jobs.