Smith in 2021. Photo: Ken Cedeno/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
Rep. Chris Smith, chair of the House Foreign Affairs human rights subcommittee, is prepping a bill to curtail imports of cobalt, a metal used in electric vehicle batteries.
Why it matters: If the bill picks up traction, it could threaten the existing EV supply chain, just as concerns over forced labor in China wrangled some solar equipment imports.
Driving the news: Smith's bill would prohibit imports of cobalt "mined using child or forced labor" using Section 307 of the 1930 Tariff Act, according to a one-pager provided by his office.
- It's a response to concerns in the humanitarian community echoed by the Labor Department about children mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the origin of most cobalt used in batteries.
- Smith's bill would require the president to report annually on foreigners facilitating child labor in Congolese mines or assisting in the evasion of U.S. mineral import restrictions, and would instruct the president to impose sanctions on those people, according to the one-pager.
- It would also compel officials to increase their efforts to prevent child labor in the region through bilateral diplomatic engagement.
- A spokesperson for Smith told Jael to expect the bill to be introduced by July.
Between the lines: This bill could in theory be either the U.S. EV industry's worst nightmare ... or merely an annoyance for it to swat away.
- It'll depend on how much it curtails goods containing DRC cobalt that are imported from other countries. Often, batteries with this cobalt are made in China, not the DRC itself.
- There are only a few places outside the DRC where the metal is found in abundance and mined in large quantities. Some carmakers are using batteries that don't use cobalt, but those come with their own tradeoffs.
Yes, but: Some experts, like author Siddharth Kara, worry that the DRC's poverty and poor labor conditions could make the country a political prop.
