...
By Jeff Young
Environment and Sustainability Editor
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
According to city history, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, was named in honor of the founder's wife back in the 1790s, but today most Kentuckians just call it "E-town" for short.
That nickname could take on a deeper meaning as the largest economic development project in state history takes shape on former farmland just outside the town's limits.
A massive complex is near completion along Interstate 65 where thousands of workers will make batteries for electric vehicles at the BlueOval SK facility, a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and Korean battery maker SK On.
Read More on U.S.
E-town is about to become an EV town.
"Well, it's changed everything," Elizabethtown Mayor Jeff Gregory told Newsweek from his office.
...
Gregory's shelves are full of the decor you'd expect in the mayoral office of a small Kentucky town—gifted bourbon bottles (unopened) and ball caps with local group logos—but Elizabethtown won't be small for long.
The population of about 33,000 has been rapidly swelling since news of the $5.6 billion battery park, expected to employ 5,500 people. Property values are soaring and Gregory said total construction spending in the city has more than doubled in the past year as new businesses pop up and more residential units go in to meet a housing crunch.
"We're seeing developers coming in and they're building housing everywhere, which has been wonderful for us," he said.
Gregory said he's had conversations with other companies hoping to locate in the area to provide the parts and materials the battery park will need as a new supply chain ecosystem develops to support EV manufacturing.
All this economic activity and investment was largely triggered by the federal support for EVs in former President Joe Biden's signature legislative achievements, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, both of which supported clean-energy technologies to fight climate change.
BlueOval SK received a $9.6 billion loan from the Department of Energy for the construction of three battery factories, including the one in Kentucky. The IRA has federal tax credits for sales of EVs manufactured in the U.S. A separate and lucrative production tax credit in the law supports the manufacturing of EV batteries. The Infrastructure Law, meanwhile, provided billions of dollars for an EV charging infrastructure, aimed to address consumer anxiety about EV battery range.
...
An analysis conducted this month by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund found nearly $198 billion worth of investments in EV and battery manufacturing have been announced at 208 facilities around the country, most of that since passage of the IRA and Infrastructure Law.
Now, however, much of that federal support for EVs is in doubt as President Donald Trump has pledged to end what he calls "the EV mandate." On his first day back in office Monday, Trump signed an executive order that seeks to pause remaining spending authorized under the IRA, halts spending on EV chargers and targets Biden-era regulations on tailpipe emissions that encourage automakers to shift to cleaner cars.
Biden's energy secretary and former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm warned in a Newsweek interview last week that a reversal on EV policy would make U.S. automakers less competitive in the emerging global market.
"Are we going to compete with China, or are we going to allow China to have this?" Granholm said.
Some industry analysts say it's not yet clear what impact Trump's order will have. In a memo Wednesday, the White House Office of Management and Budget attempted to clarify Trump's executive order, indicating a narrow scope for restrictions on IRA spending.
Former General Motors Chief Economist Elaine Buckberg, now a senior fellow at Harvard's Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, said vague wording in the executive order raises questions about what types of tax credits or IRA spending might be at risk.
"If the Trump administration indeed pauses IRA tax credits, it's a squeeze on making EVs domestically," Buckberg told Newsweek. She said the cost of manufacturing and the price to consumers for domestic EVs would go up, while foreign EV makers would benefit.
An analysis published in November by University of California, Berkeley, economists found that a repeal of the EV tax credit would cut EV sales and leases by about 27 percent, and U.S. manufacturers would take the biggest hit.
That has raised alarms among clean car proponents like David Kieve, president of EDF Action, the advocacy partner of the Environmental Defense Fund.
"Shovels are in the ground based upon corporate decisions about what will pencil out, in part based on tax policy," Kieve told Newsweek. "It would be wrong to pull the rug out from underneath those jobs and those corporations."
In an unlikely quirk of political geography, most of the places where investments might be undercut by Trump's U-turn on EV policy are also places that helped to elect him. The bulk of EV manufacturing spurred by Democratic policies went to politically red states. Now, many congressional Republicans could face a tough decision between supporting hometown jobs or supporting Trump's approach to EVs.
Red State EV Jobs at Risk
The BlueOval SK Kentucky battery park is in Hardin County, where Elizabethtown is the county seat, and in the 2024 presidential race the county went for Trump by a 29-point margin.
A map of EV investments spurred by the IRA shows a similar pattern in places where auto plants are being built or retooled and where battery plants are under construction.
...
According to the EDF analysis, about 83 percent of the investments are in congressional districts represented by a Republican. Of the top 25 congressional districts for EV investments, 22 are Republican.
Republican Congressman Brett Guthrie represents Kentucky's 2nd District, home to Elizabethtown and the BlueOval battery park. Guthrie did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Some of Guthrie's past statements reflect mixed views on EV development. In a 2022 statement, Guthrie celebrated EV battery investments that were making his district "a leader in manufacturing this technology."
But in a 2024 statement on auto emissions rules, Guthrie said Biden's "rush-to-green radical agenda is attempting to force households to purchase electric vehicles."
...
In a press briefing in November, Kentucky's Democratic Governor Andy Beshear said there were more than 10,000 jobs at stake in EV and battery projects in the state.
"This is going to be a test of our federal delegation of being a part of 'Team Kentucky' first before being a part of a political party," Beshear said. "My hope is, if this incoming administration is really going to focus on the economy and jobs, like former President Trump has talked about, then he'll see the importance of these projects."
Organizing for Better Blue-Collar EV Jobs
In a windowless, cinderblock building that once housed the Knights of Columbus in Elizabethtown, a small group of United Auto Workers organizers sat in folding chairs on a recent Monday evening peering at their laptops.
The shift to EVs has been a challenge for the UAW as it seeks to protect jobs and wages in a rapidly changing industry. After a successful strike against Detroit's Big Three automakers in 2023, the UAW has been making some headway organizing workers at EV battery facilities. This month, workers at the BlueOval SK facility filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to join the UAW.
Elizabethtown resident Lavon Poynter is an electric maintenance technician at the BlueOval SK facility and said he's "ecstatic" about being part of the EV industry.
"We're making history," Poynter told Newsweek. "I think this is the future, and it's going to be awesome to talk to my children about it."
...
However, Poynter said, his experience in the chemical industry left him keenly aware of the importance of workplace safety practices. He said his main motivation for seeking union representation is to ensure solid safety protocols in the potentially hazardous work of battery making.
"They're mixing the chemicals together and stuff like that, so you've got vapors that can be in the air, and you got powders that can be airborne," Poynter said. "The big thing is just to make sure that we leave in one piece the same way we went in there."
Jason Wade oversees the union's legislative and trade work as a top assistant to UAW President Shawn Fain. Wade said the UAW is closely monitoring Trump's EV policy changes and how the industry responds.
"The industry will use all this chaos around the transition as an excuse to drive down standards," Wade told Newsweek.
A Plea for Careful Political Decisions
BlueOval SK officials declined an interview request for this story and instead offered a statement via email.
"We will monitor changes made by the current administration and adapt as needed," spokesperson Mallory Cooke said in the email. "Our vision of electrification remains a key part of the future. We will continue to work with local, state, and federal agencies to achieve that mission."
Harvard Salata Institute's Buckberg said legal challenges to Trump's executive order were likely, and she said many of the things described in the order would require congressional action.
On Wednesday, Ford stock shares were down after an analyst at Barclays cut his rating on Ford citing "an air of uncertainty" for the auto industry in 2025.
...
In Elizabethtown, Mayor Gregory said his conversations with the company left him confident about their commitment to the battery project. The mayor is a nonpartisan elected office, and Gregory, a former state police trooper, describes himself as a "middle guy" with little interest in party labels.
"I care about getting stuff done for our folks," he said. If he had a chance to speak with President Trump and congressional Republican leaders, he said, he would ask that they take the same approach.
"I would tell them to make sure when they decide to put their policy in place and they decide to cast their votes that they really understand what that's going to do to a certain percentage of the population that are banking on a lot of these jobs being available to them," Gregory said. "I would just ask him to be extremely careful."
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines