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Families of Uvalde victims react with anger, disappointment over report on school shooting

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — The loved ones of those killed in a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, are reacting with anger and disappointment Sunday after a committee of state lawmakers investigating the massacre released a 77-page report that said law enforcement officers who responded to the rampage “failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety.”

The public release of the report came as the joint committee of the Texas Legislature met Sunday afternoon with the families of the victims and just days after security video footage from inside Robb Elementary School showing the delayed police response to the attack was leaked and obtained by two Texas news outlets.

The committee’s report laid out in detail the lapses in preparation, training and judgment in connection with the police response to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

“It’s a joke. Texas failed the students. Law enforcement failed the students. Our government failed the students. What else do you want me to say? The truth is out there. Everybody saw the truth,” Vincent Salazar, whose 11-year-old granddaughter, Layla Salazar, was killed in the attack, told ABC News.

Salazar said he wasn’t going to attend the meeting with the committee at Uvalde Junior College and was only there to pick up a copy of the report to take home and read through it thoroughly.

He said he believes the killer should have never made it into the school, let alone been allowed nearly 77 minutes to kill as numerous state, federal and local law enforcement officers waited in the hallway outside the classrooms where the shooter was holed up.

“If I were these officers, I would leave town,” Salazar said. “They don’t deserve to be here.”

Sergio Garcia, whose 10-year-old son, Uziyah Sergio Garcia, was also killed in the mass shooting, agreed.

“I get paid at my job to do my job. If I didn’t do my job, I wouldn’t be working,” Garcia said told reporters Sunday. “Now, they took an oath, had a badge, they had unlimited resources and they need to pay for what they did not do.”

Garcia said he was “mad at everybody” who appeared to do nothing to save the 19 children and two teachers from being killed.

“In certain schools, they have police, sheriffs in the front. Why don’t they protect our kids like they protect money in a vault at a bank?” Garcia said. “Our kids are more valuable than that money. This is not the first time a school has been shot up and kids have lost their lives. This need to be the last time this happens. It shouldn’t happen anymore. Nobody should ever go through this.”

The report paints the most complete portrait to date of the massacre, which was described a series of “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement.”

But committee members said they do not know whether a faster or more competent response could have saved lives in the face of a heavily armed gunman who appeared bent on killing everybody in his sight with a high-powered assault rifle.

In addition to making its report public, the committee released video that captured the police response inside the schools.

The official release of the video comes after footage from inside the school as the attack was unfolding was leaked and obtained by Austin ABC affiliate KVUE and the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.

KVUE released a statement, saying, it and the Austin-Statesman elected to publish that footage “to provide transparency to the community, showing what happened as officials waited to enter that classroom.”

KVUE and the American-Statesman both published an edited portion of the never-before-seen footage on Tuesday, ahead of Sunday’s planned release of the video by state lawmakers. The outlets also published the unedited 77-minute version footage online.

Uvalde:365 is a continuing ABC News series reported from Uvalde and focused on the Texas community and how it forges on in the shadow of tragedy.

Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, who expressed anger over the video being leaked and aired before the families first had a chance to review it.

Following Sunday’s meeting, committee members are expected to hold a news conference and make the video public along with its report on the shooting.

Rep. Dustin Burrows, the committee chairman, said the committee had planned to give the families the opportunity to see the video in private before it was released to the public and expressed disappointment that the two media outlets preempted those plans.

The leak of the video infuriated some of the victim’s family members. Some saw it as the latest source of frustration with the investigation that has included inaccurate information from investigators and elected leaders, including an initial statement from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that the school’s police immediately engaged the gunman before he got into the school. Abbott later said he was “misled” about the circumstances of the shooting.

“They weren’t supposed to do it without our consent,” Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jackie, was killed in the attack, told ABC News after the video was leaked.

Several of the families were meeting with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, when the video was aired on television and online. Despite the family members and some elected leaders, including Abbott, repeatedly calling for the video’s release, the local district attorney denied the requests.

“We’ve been asking the DA for this video for a while and she refused to let us see it,” Nikki Cross, the aunt of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia, who was killed in the rampage, told ABC News. “So once again, the world got to see it before us. Just like the day of the shooting when Gov. Abbott announced to you all that our children are dead and we have no idea. It’s like reliving that day all over again.”

Christina Mitchell Busbee — the 38th Judicial District Attorney, whose jurisdiction includes Uvalde County — defended her now overridden decision not to release the video in an interview over the weekend with the Uvalde Leader-News, saying the move threatens to jeopardize the investigation, which she said is ongoing and could lead to possible criminal charges if anyone is found to have aided the suspect in planning the attack.

“My goal is to secure justice for the victims, their families, and the citizens of the 38th Judicial District,” Busbee told the newspaper. “This goal cannot be accomplished unless there is a thorough investigation buttressed by fairness, integrity and impartiality free from political and media pressures.”

Burrows said the committee’s release of the video and report are intended to provide transparency to the families of those killed despite guidance from the local district attorney that the footage remain under wraps.

The video published by the news outlets and now released by the committee, including police body-camera video and footage from a surveillance camera mounted in a hallway of the school, shows dozens of law enforcement officers waiting in the hallway outside the adjoined classrooms where the gunman was committing the mass shooting. The officers — including some with protective shields, wearing tactical armor and armed with high-powered rifles — didn’t breach the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even as additional volleys of gunfire could be heard on the video from the classrooms 45 minutes after police arrived on the scene, the footage released by the news organizations shows.

The video began by showing the 18-year-old suspect, wearing tactical gear and wielding a high-powered AR-15 style weapon, entering the school unabated at 11:33 a.m. on May 24 and walking down the hallway to the classrooms. A barrage of gunfire could be heard on the footage soon after the gunman entered the school.

Three minutes after the killer entered the school, three police officers, wearing bullet-proof vests and guns drawn, are seen running down the hallway toward the classrooms where the gunman was holed up, while at least four other officers entered the school and took cover, the video shows. Moments later, the three officers who charged down the hallway are seen in the video retreating after coming under fire.

Police eventually breached the classroom and killed the gunman 77 minutes after he entered the school, authorities said.

France, Spain and Portugal afflicted by heat, wildfires

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — As Western Europe experiences a record-breaking heat wave, thousands of firefighters are having trouble containing forest fires in France, Spain and Portugal that have destroyed thousands of acres of land.

The fires have forced thousands of people to evacuate to safety, as extreme heat grips the region. There have also been more than 1,000 heat-related deaths in Spain and Portugal so far in July, according to the respective countries’ ministries of health.

In southern France, more than 14,000 people were forced to flee as fires spread to more than 27,180 acres of land. The country’s Interior Ministry also issued red alerts for heat waves for 15 French departments and orange alerts for 51 departments on Sunday.

Monday could be the hottest day on record in the country, according to France’s BFM TV. Belis, France, reached a high of 40.8 degrees Celsius — 105.44 Fahrenheit — on Sunday.

The number of people who died of heat-related deaths is unknown, but France’s Ministry of Health told ABC News that information on the number of casualties will be released at the end of the month.

Meanwhile, more than 360 people in Spain have died from heat-related deaths between July 10 and 17, with 84 people dying in the last 24 hours, the country’s Ministry of Health reported.

Firefighters there are fighting 30 active fires, mostly in Castilla y Leon, Galicia and Andalusia, Interior Ministry and Catalan Authorities said.

Temperatures on Sunday were forecast to reach 42 C (107.6 F) in three provinces in the country, prompting the state meteorological agency to issue “extreme risk” alerts.

In Mijas, Spain, in the municipality of Malaga, 3,000 people have fled due to fires. More than 22,000 acres of land are at risk of being burned in the Mijas province as firefighters struggle to contain the flames.

Wildfires are happening earlier in the season, ending later and becoming more frequent because of climate change, the European Union said in a report last year.

“Climate change is aggravating the situation, making countries more prone to wildfires and increasing the intensity of such events,” the report said.

In Portugal, wildfires are quickly spreading throughout the country’s central and northern regions. According to Portugal’s Ministry of Health, between July 7 and 13, 238 people had heat-related deaths, and there were more than 421 heat-related fatalities between July 14 and 17.

The sweltering heat is also expected to take hold of other parts of Europe in the coming days. Areas of England are expected to hit 40 C (104 F) on Monday and Tuesday.

The U.K. government issued a national emergency and warned people not to leave their homes unless necessary, according to The Associated Press.

“This year, for the first time, we’ve issued a severe weather emergency response in summer,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan said.

Joe Manchin is ‘intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda’: Bernie Sanders

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday castigated Sen. Joe Manchin after the West Virginia Democrat said he wouldn’t support legislation focused on climate change and tax changes, citing his concerns over high inflation.

Manchin is “intentionally sabotaging the president’s agenda, what the American people want, what a majority of us in the Democratic caucus want. Nothing new about this,” Sanders, I-Vt., told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. “And the problem was that we continue to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not.”

“When Manchin sabotages climate change, this is the future generations what’s going on right now,” Sanders said. “In the West, all over the world, we’re looking at significantly increased — more and more heat waves. You’d have to look at more flooding. This is an existential threat to humanity.”

The rebuke comes after Manchin told fellow Democrats that he wouldn’t vote — at least not right away — for a party-line proposal to address climate change that some lawmakers had been hopeful to pass with their fragile congressional majority.

Instead, Manchin said, he would back a bill that focused solely on health care measures like prescription drug prices.

Since retaking Congress in 2020, Democrats have been trying to pass major legislation on a slate of social issues to make good on President Joe Biden’s campaign promises and give themselves a boost before the November midterms. But Manchin — and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema — have repeatedly broken with the rest of the caucus because of political objections, largely derailing those efforts in the 50-50 Senate.

On “This Week,” Sanders vented that the latest development echoed negotiations last year when Manchin also walked away from a broader social spending bill.

“Same nonsense that Manchin has been talking about for a year,” Sanders told Raddatz when asked about Manchin’s worries over inflation, which hit an annual pace of 9.1 percent last month, a 40-year high. “In my humble opinion, Manchin represents the very wealthiest people in this country, not working families of West Virginia or America.”

In a statement last week, Manchin said he was thinking of everyday costs in opposing the climate and tax proposal.

“Items like chicken, eggs and lunchmeat have increased to new highs, while energy costs rose more than 40% in June with those that can least afford it suffering the most. It is past time we put our country first and end this inflation crisis,” he said.

During his appearance Sunday, Sanders also lamented Biden’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying the president shouldn’t have gone because of Riyadh’s human rights record, including the murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and U.S. permanent resident.

U.S. intelligence has assessed that Khashoggi’s killing was approved by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, which Saudi Arabia vehemently denies.

“Should Biden have gone?” Raddatz asked.

“You have a leader of a country who was involved in the murder of a Washington Post journalist. I don’t think that type of government should be rewarded with a visit by the president of the United States,” Sanders said. (The White House says Biden immediately raised Khashoggi’s killing when he met with bin Salman last week.)

“If this country believes in anything, we believe in human rights, we believe in democracy,” Sanders said. “And I just don’t believe that we should be maintaining a warm relationship with a dictatorship like that.”

Raddatz pressed Sanders on whether Biden’s discussions with bin Salman made sense in light of high gas prices, but Sanders argued that action around what he called corporate greed could make a bigger difference at the pump.

“At the heart of the discussions was oil, and President Biden said the Saudis would take action in the coming weeks. Could that make a difference, and doesn’t that explain why he went? What would you have done?” Raddatz asked.

“One of the things we’ve got to look at is the fact that while Americans are paying $4.50, $4.80 for a gallon of gas, the oil company profits in the last quarter have been extraordinarily high,” he said. “And I happen to believe that we’ve got to tell the oil companies to stop ripping off the American people. And if they don’t, we should impose a windfall profits tax on them.”

4 dead after sheriff’s helicopter crashes in New Mexico

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LAS VEGAS, N.M.) — Four people aboard a sheriff’s department helicopter have died following a crash Saturday night near Las Vegas, New Mexico, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department.

Three members of the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office and one member of the Bernalillo County Fire Department were in the helicopter known as Metro 2 at the time of the crash, officials said.

The first responders were on their way back to Albuquerque after assisting fire crews with the East Mesa Fire, according to the sheriff’s department.

New Mexico State Police said they had arrived at the scene, which is about 120 miles northeast of Albuquerque. Both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were expected to investigate the crash, the state police said.

“At this time the investigation into this incident is in its preliminary stages. As we learn further details, we will provide them through official press releases like this one,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Please keep these individuals and their families in your thoughts and prayers tonight.”

Jan. 6 committee expects more information soon from Secret Service amid deleted Jan. 6 messages

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Ahead of Thursday’s hearing by the House’s Jan. 6 committee, investigators anticipate receiving more information from the Secret Service “to get the full picture” of what occurred before and during the Capitol insurrection last year, including as it related to text messages agents sent in that period of time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren said Sunday.

“We expect to get them by this Tuesday,” Lofgren, a California Democrat and member of the House committee, told ABC “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz. Lofgren was referring to “pertinent texts” the agency said they had in the wake of a complaint last week from an internal watchdog that the Secret Service had deleted texts from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, after the watchdog sought those records.

“We need all of the texts from the fifth and sixth of January. I was shocked to hear that they didn’t back up their data before they reset their iPhones. That’s crazy, and I don’t know why that would be,” Lofgren told Raddatz, “but we need to get this information to get the full picture.”

In a previous statement, the Secret Service — which was subpoenaed by the committee on Friday — said any “insinuation” that they intentionally deleted texts was false and that the committee had their “full and unwavering cooperation.”

On “This Week,” Raddatz asked Lofgren about what evidence the public could expect at Thursday’s hearing, which the committee has said will detail the Trump White House’s reaction to the unfolding riot.

“I’m going to let the hearings speak for itself, but we hope to go through minute by minute what happened, what didn’t happen on that day and people can make their own judgment,” Lofgren said.

She said the hearing would not touch on the allegation of witness tampering that Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice-chair, raised during the last hearing — saying that Trump had attempted to contact an unnamed witness who hasn’t appeared publicly. (Trump’s spokesman called Cheney a liar.)

Raddatz noted that while some in the public have been influenced by the committee’s evidence during the hearings, “a recent Monmouth poll [from late June] found less than a quarter of Americans are paying attention and 90% of those say the hearings have not changed their minds.”

“I think some people have heard us. More than 55 million people have watched some part of the committee proceedings,” Lofgren said.

Meanwhile, she said, “This investigation is very much ongoing. The fact that series of hearings is going to be concluded this Thursday doesn’t mean that our investigation is over. It’s very active, new witnesses are coming forward, additional information is coming forward.”

The committee is also weighing seeking interviews with Trump and Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“Everything is on the table,” Lofgren said — including a possible criminal referral, which committee members have repeatedly said they are considering but which amounts to a symbolic gesture rather than a legal directive. The decision is ultimately up to prosecutors.

As for the Department of Justice’s cases related to Jan. 6, Lofgren said she believed the wrongdoing went beyond the false electors scheme the committee had detailed — evidence the committee said the DOJ has now requested.

“I do think that there’s a much broader plot here. I think that’s pretty obvious,” Lofgren said. “I would not want to tell the attorney general how to conduct his investigations. But I will say this, they have subpoena power and they have a lot easier way to enforce their subpoenas than the Congress does.”

Uvalde report outlines ‘shortcomings and failures’ before and during attack

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(UVALDE, Texas) — Lawmakers in Texas on Sunday unveiled the first detailed investigative report into the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, laying out the lapses in preparation, training and judgment in connection with one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

Their report, which painted the most complete portrait to date of the massacre, described a series of “shortcomings and failures of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and of various agencies and officers of law enforcement.”

Members of a special committee of the Texas state legislature met Sunday with family members of the victims to present their findings and field questions from a community still seeking answers nearly two months after a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.

Family members of the victims say the anguish of losing their loved ones has been compounded by a failure on the part of state and local leaders to articulate what took police officers nearly 77 minutes to confront and kill the 18-year-old gunman.

Senior law enforcement and elected officials have repeatedly shared misleading or contradictory information about the police response, testing the community’s faith in leadership. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he had been “misled” by authorities after conveying inaccurate information to the public days after the shooting — a blunder that he said left him “livid.”

In those first hours, officials painted a picture of heroism and fast action by police — but in the days and weeks since, that portrait has been turned on its head.

“There are people who deserve answers the most, and those are the families whose lives have been destroyed,” Abbott said. “They need answers that are accurate, and it is inexcusable that they may have suffered from any inaccurate information whatsoever.”

Last month, at a hearing before a state Senate panel, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw called the police response an “abject failure” and claimed that enough officers and equipment arrived on the scene within three minutes to “neutralize” the shooter.

Surveillance video of the shooting obtained and published last week by ABC affiliate KVUE and the Austin-American Statesman showed dozens of officers congregating outside the adjoined classrooms where the gunman had fired indiscriminately on students and teachers.

Lawmakers had planned to release the surveillance video on Sunday after meeting with the families, but were preempted earlier this week when media outlets broadcast the footage — enraging some family members of the victims, who said they felt blindsided by how things were handled.

During his testimony last month, McCraw reserved his harshest criticism for Uvalde ISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who he accused of “[deciding] to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.” Arredondo, who has not responded to multiple interview requests from ABC News, told the Texas Tribune last month that he did not know he was the on-scene commander during the shooting.

ABC News’ Alexandra Dukakis contributed to this report.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez take out a marriage license in Nevada

July 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

If they haven’t already tied the knot, it appears as though Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are getting ready to do so at any moment.

The couple, who got engaged in April, took out a marriage license in Clark County, Nevada on Saturday. While various outlets are reporting that the two have actually gotten married, that hasn’t been confirmed. ABC News has reached out to the couple’s representatives.

Affleck and Lopez were previously engaged in 2002, but postponed their 2003 wedding before finally breaking up in 2004. Affleck went on to marry Jennifer Garner in 2005; they divorced in 2018. Lopez married singer Marc Anthony in 2004, but they divorced in 2014. Affleck shares three kids with Garner, while J-Lo shares 14-year-old twins with Anthony.

Last year, after Jennifer and fiancé Alex Rodriguez broke up, she and Affleck rekindled their romance, and he proposed in April.

Earlier this year, Lopez told People of their romance, “It’s a beautiful outcome that this has happened in this way at this time in our lives where we can really appreciate and celebrate each other and respect each other.”

Woman killed in alligator attack at Florida golf course: Sheriff

July 16, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ENGLEWOOD, Fla.) — An elderly woman was killed after she fell into a pond along a Florida golf course and was attacked by two alligators, authorities said.

The incident occurred shortly before 8 p.m. Friday at the Boca Royale Golf and Country Club in Englewood, about 30 miles south of Sarasota.

The woman fell into a pond along the course near her home “and struggled to stay afloat,” the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“While in the water two alligators were observed near the victim and ultimately grabbed her while in the water,” the sheriff’s office said.

The woman, who has not been identified by authorities, was pronounced dead at the scene.

An alligator trapper from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission responded and removed the alligators as part of the investigation, the sheriff’s office said.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said an 8′ 10” alligator and a 7′ 7″ alligator seen near the pond were removed. The agency said it is unknown at this time if the alligators were involved in the incident, but that it doesn’t plan to remove any additional alligators from the area at this time.

“The FWC and Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office will be working jointly on this investigation until cause of death is determined by the Sarasota County Medical Examiner’s Office,” the agency said in a statement.

No further information was released by the sheriff’s office amid the investigation.

The Boca Royale Golf and Country Club told ABC News it doesn’t have a comment at this time.

The country club is located in a 1,000-acre private gated community that features lakes and nature preserves, according to its website.

Fatal alligator bites are rare. From 1948 to 2021, Florida reported 442 unprovoked bite incidents from alligators, 26 of which resulted in fatalities, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. In the last 10 years, the state has averaged eight unprovoked bites a year that require medical treatment, the agency said.

The likelihood of someone being seriously injured during an unprovoked alligator incident in Florida is roughly one in 3.1 million, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

A man believed to be looking for Frisbees in a lake was killed in a suspected alligator attack in late May in Largo, a city in the Tampa Bay area, police said.

Biden pledges U.S. won’t ‘walk away’ from Middle East

July 16, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia) — President Joe Biden wrapped up his first trip to the Middle East on Saturday by pledging that the United States will continue to be an engaged partner in the region.

Speaking at the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Biden said his administration will support relationships with nations that “subscribe to the rules-based international order.”

“As the world grows more competitive, and the challenges we face more complex, it is only becoming clearer to me how closely interwoven our interests are with the successes of the Middle East,” Biden said. “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”

The U.S., he said, “is not going anywhere.”

Biden on Saturday announced $1B to fight food insecurity in the region, and said the nations present at the summit were collectively contributing billions of dollars on clean energy initiatives.

Biden’s four-day international trip came as the U.S. remains focused on countering China’s rise in the region and uniting global partners against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It also occurred as Biden seeks to lower sky-high gas prices at home. Biden said Saturday the leaders agreed on the need to ensure “adequate supplies” to meet global demand.

After meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday, Biden said the Saudis “share that urgency” and that he expects to see further action in the coming weeks. But when asked when Americans can see the impacts of that visit, he acknowledged it wouldn’t be immediate.

“I suspect you won’t see that for another couple of weeks,” he said.

Biden faced some criticism for his meeting with Mohammed bin Salman — the man the U.S. believes is responsible for the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy.

Biden and Mohammed bin Salman were photographed fist-bumping each other outside the Al-Salam Royal Palace, three years after Biden vowed as a presidential candidate to make the nation a “pariah” over Khashoggi’s murder.

Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, said Khashoggi would have responded to the fist bump by asking the president “is this the accountability you promised for my murder? The blood of MBS’s next victim is on your hands.”

Biden told reporters he raised Khashoggi at the top of their meeting, and continued to condemn his killing as “outrageous.”

Sitting next to Mohammed bin Salman at Saturday’s summit, Biden also touched on the issue of human rights as he laid out his five-point vision for U.S. policy for the region.

“Foundational freedoms are foundational to who we are as Americans,” he said. “It’s in our DNA. But it’s also because we know that the future will be won by the countries that unleash the full potential of their populations, where women can exercise equal rights and contribute to building stronger economies, resilient societies, and more modern and capable militaries; where citizens can question and criticize their leaders without fear of reprisal.”

ABC News’ Molly Nagle and Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.

Automakers look to the South to build electric vehicle batteries

July 16, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — You won’t find many electric vehicles on the back roads in Alabama and Tennessee yet thousands of residents in these states are building them to meet growing demand.

Automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Volkswagen are investing billions of dollars in high-tech plants that will supply the battery packs necessary for the transition to EVs.

Last month, Volkswagen of America opened a $22 million Battery Engineering Lab (BEL), a 32,000-square-foot facility located near its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant. Engineers at the lab test batteries for safety, durability and quality in extreme climate conditions and the company’s compact ID.4 SUV, currently imported from Germany, will roll off assembly lines for U.S. consumers later this year. More than 4,000 workers are employed at the Chattanooga plant and Volkswagen plans to hire 1,000 new production team members by year-end.

Producing battery packs locally “makes us faster,” Wolfgang Maluche, vice president of engineering at Volkswagen of America, told ABC News. “Chattanooga [will] become Volkswagen’s hub for electric mobility in the United States.”

More battery plants are coming and southern states will continue to benefit, according to Arun Kumar, a managing director at consulting firm AlixPartners, which forecasts a 54% EV market share globally by 2035.

“Southern states are definitely aggressive … 46% of vehicle production in the U.S. currently happens in the South. It’s not a surprise to me that more investment is going there,” Kumar told ABC News. “This is just a start. The EV era is real.”

Gil Tal of UC Davis’ Institute of Transportation Studies said southern states are “fighting hard” to be chosen by automakers, offering attractive tax incentives and favorable investment packages. As the Biden administration pushes consumers toward EVs, setting an ambitious target to make half of all new vehicles sold by 2030 electric, Tal, like Kumar, expects automakers to diversify their supply chain.

“Demand is going up for EVs and there will be new regulations that mandate sales of them,” Tal told ABC News. “Battery production is changing and getting better and more efficient. Any company that sells a significant amount of cars in the U.S. will build battery plants here.”

Producing these highly technological batteries within the U.S. solves many of the headaches plaguing automakers in recent years, Kumar argued. Tesla, the No. 1 seller of EVs in the country, produces batteries and electric motors for the Model 3 at its Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, which broke ground in June 2014. The site currently produces more batteries in terms of kWh than all other carmakers combined, making it the highest-volume battery plant in the world, according to Tesla.

Mercedes, which said it would go all electric by the end of the decade, will invest over 40 billion euros into battery electric vehicles between 2022 and 2030. The Bibb County plant joins the company’s global battery production network with factories on three continents.

In September, Ford Motor said it would construct twin battery plants in central Kentucky to power a new lineup of Lincoln and Ford EVs. Another battery campus in Tennessee will focus on next-generation electric F-Series pickups like the F-150 Lightning. The two projects will cost $11.4 billion and create nearly 11,000 new jobs, Ford said. The Dearborn automaker expects 40% to 50% of its global vehicle volume to be fully electric by 2030.

BMW expanded its battery facility at Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina in late 2019, more than doubling its capacity for battery assembly. Higher performing, fourth-generation batteries are assembled on-site for the BMW X5 and BMW X3 plug-in hybrid electric variants and 120 employees were specially trained to work the new line, having completed an extensive program in battery production, robotics and electrical inline quality inspection along with end-of-line testing, BMW said.

States in the traditional “auto belt” are still vying for automakers’ investment dollars. Panasonic, a major supplier to Tesla, announced this week it would build a new U.S. lithium-ion battery cell factory in De Soto, Kansas, investing $4 billion and creating up to 4,000 new jobs. The plant will primarily supply batteries to Tesla but is not limited to the company, Reuters reported.

Stellantis said it would build an EV battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana, with its partner Samsung SDI. The plant, on target for a 2025 launch, would create 1,400 jobs in Kokomo and the surrounding area, Stellantis said, for a total investment of $2.5 billion.

Ultium Cells, a joint venture of LG Energy Solution and General Motors, will open a new 2.8 million-square-foot facility in Lansing, Michigan, its third battery cell manufacturing plant in the country. At least 1,700 manufacturing jobs will be available at the location and workers will supply battery cells to Orion Assembly in Michigan and other GM EV assembly plants.

The southern shift by automakers and intense focus on EVs has some long-time industry workers worried about their future. EVs take 40% less powertrain assembly hours than a gas-powered vehicle, according to Kumar. Workers with core skills in combustion engine technology would need significant retraining to work in a battery plant, he noted. EVs in general are less complicated to manufacture, are not labor intensive and many parts of the process are automated.

“Workers are worried about job security and concerned their sons and daughters won’t have jobs” in the industry, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. “Working in an auto plant is often a family affair — and these are pretty good jobs.”

The U.S. may be viewed as a laggard in EV battery production compared to China, where EVs caught on early with consumers and government leaders deemed batteries to be a critical industry. Gordon argued that automakers are tackling U.S. battery production at the right time and any earlier could have been a foolhardy move.

“People would have been laughing 10 years ago if automakers wanted to build these plants,” Gordon said. “They would be obsolete today. The underlining tech is changing so quickly and for the better.”

What will happen to these plants and the workers if EV sales in the U.S. hit the brakes in the next five, 10 years?

“The interest in EVs won’t die off,” Tal said. “Automakers have a secure EV market. All this investment won’t go away.”

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