House Republicans Demand Investigation Over DHS Money Being Used to Buy Chinese Solar Panels Made With Forced Labor

Eighteen Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are demanding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) conduct an “immediate investigation” on possible federal law violations by sending taxpayer money for the purchase of Chinese-made solar panels.

“We are concerned with federal taxpayer dollars Congress has allocated to FEMA for supplemental disaster relief since 2017 and how they may be used,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter dated Sept. 7 to DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari. Particularly, how the DHS funds could be used to“enrich China, an adversary with a record of human rights abuses and slave labor.”

FEMA is short for Federal Emergency Management Agency, a DHS agency.

At the heart of the concerns is how the U.S. Virgin Islands may have used DHS funding. According to the letter, the federal government provided the territory with $8 billion in disaster relief following two hurricanes in 2017, with $5 billion of the money coming from FEMA.

The lawmakers are concerned that the U.S. Virgin Islands may have spent the DHS money on buying Chinese solar panels, as the territory has been transitioning to solar power. According to the letter, the territory was awarded $4.4 million from FEMA for a new 28-megawatt solar micro-grid project on St. Croix in 2021.

Additionally, Albert Bryan, governor of U.S. Virgins Island, announced plans to make St. Croix 100 percent powered by solar energy.

In the letter, the lawmakers warned that Chinese solar panels are likely built by forced labor, given that much of the world’s supply of polysilicon is processed in China’s Xinjiang region—where the U.S. government has designated China’s persecution of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities as genocide and crimes against humanity.

“Almost 40 percent of the global production of polysilicon, a key component in solar panels, comes from the Xinjiang region, and nearly 85 percent of