… And he cited the specific example of Li-Cycle, a Toronto-based lithium battery recycling operation that’s building a new plant in Rochester, N.Y., with more than US$370 million worth of help from the U.S. Department of Energy, thanks to the IRA.
“They don’t feel like they’re being hurt by Buy American,” said Cohen, who said he met Li-Cycle executives at a recent conference in D.C.
“Buy American didn’t stop them from getting a $370-million grant from the United States government. And they’re not discouraged at all in applying for additional funding to support their lithium recycling business.”
But the fact they are building the plant in the U.S. and not in Canada speaks volumes, said Scotty Greenwood, CEO of the Canadian American Business Council.
“Competition makes us each better and our ultimate competitors and adversaries are in other places in the world — that’s true,” Greenwood said.
“But to say that there’s zero protectionism, and then to give an example of U.S. government money going to a Canadian firm to open a facility in the U.S., it’s precisely the point — the incentives work.”
