Southern states on track to be nation's 'battery belt' though their leaders don't fully acknowledge climate change

Gov. Brian Kemp (R) stands next to a Rivian truck.
(Photo by John Bazemore, The Associated Press)

Once a tranquil town, Commerce, Georgia, is now on track to become one of the nation's electronic battery-making hubs, reports Shannon Osaka of The Washington Post. "The battery plant just north of Commerce is hard to miss. It looms over Interstate 85 like a monolith: sheer gray walls many stories high, a vast parking lot that extends almost half a mile. . . . The factory, which opened in early 2022, employs over 2,600 people — about a third of the town’s population. . . . It's operated and owned by the U.S. wing of the South Korean company SK Group," which has partnered with Ford Motor Co. to build two electric-vehicle battery plants just south of Elizabethtown, Kentucky. 

Clean-energy incentives "are landing in congressional districts represented by Republicans," and the Commerce plant "is one of a bonanza of electric vehicle investments that are transforming rural Georgia into a bustling 'battery belt'," Osaka writes. "But even as Gov. Brian Kemp aims to make Georgia the 'electric mobility capital of America,' he and other Republicans are doing little to put more EVs on state roads — or to acknowledge the climate reasons behind the switch. . . . Last month, the state Senate passed a tax on public EV charging. Along with the governor, most state lawmakers rarely mention emissions reductions and environmental benefits of switching to electric vehicles. . . . The result is a strange moment in Georgia's shift toward making and selling EVs: A state with one foot in — and one foot out — of a massive transition."

Even with the political teeter-totter, EV manufacturers are capitalizing on political aspects of the South. "Almost all Southern states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee, are what conservatives call 'right to work' states — meaning employees can't be required to join a union as a condition of employment," Osaka explains. "Such states have gotten the lion's share of clean energy and EV money. . . . One study by researchers at Georgia Tech that examined almost 20,000 collective bargaining agreements found that right-to-work laws are associated with lower wages among unionized employees."

Could the growth in EV jobs in the South reduce the polarization of views about climate change? "Thomas Oatley, a professor of political science at Tulane University, argues that part of the schism on climate change stems from an economic divide. Republican voters are more likely to live in areas where jobs are closely tied to carbon-emitting industries like auto manufacturing or coal-fired power generation; Democratic voters are more likely to live on the coasts and work at a desk in 'knowledge-based' jobs." Oakley told her, "If you get a growing number of people employed in the clean energy sector, that could increase support for climate policy in red and purple states."

"Georgia is far from that point today. But the tens of thousands of jobs coming to the state make it difficult for politicians to oppose the transition," Osaka adds. "Former GOP senator David Perdue, who ran for governor against Kemp in 2022, was a vocal critic of the Rivian plant. . . . But that anti-EV message failed to gain much support — Perdue was soundly defeated in the primary." Mike Carr, a partner at the consultancy Boundary Stone, told Osaka, "If Georgians start to think of themselves as the heart of clean energy manufacturing — I don't know how you run against that and win."