More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
Electric Vehicle Plants in South Carolina - Interview with Alaina Moore
Can local governance hold the key to rooting out corruption and ensuring transparency? Join us on More Than Medicine as we welcome Ms. Alaina Moore, co-founder of Palmetto State Watch and host of the Magnifying Glass podcast, a powerful voice in South Carolina's fight for transparency. Alaina shares her compelling journey, detailing her recent presentation to the Cherokee County GOP in Gaffney, where she tackled significant issues like the Freedom of Information Act, election and audit fraud, and high-profile lawsuits involving the Attorney General. We also dive into Governor McMaster's economic initiatives, examining the controversial involvement of foreign entities in Electric vehicle projects, with a spotlight on the Scout Motors deal in Columbia, South Carolina.
As we move forward, we critically assess the future of electric vehicles in America. Can the promise of green energy truly reshape our automotive landscape? We draw comparisons between the economic successes of traditional automotive plants like BMW in South Carolina and the uncertain future of new EV and battery factories. Major car manufacturers like Ford are facing financial struggles, and skepticism about widespread EV adoption persists. We emphasize the importance of community engagement, urging citizens to voice their concerns to local officials and participate in council meetings to influence decisions that impact their communities. This episode underscores how informed voter engagement and grassroots movements can halt questionable projects and ensure better governance.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, dr Robert Jackson, and his wife Carlotta and daughter Hannah Miller. So listen up, because the doctor is in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson. Welcome to More Than Medicine. I'm your host, dr Robert Jackson, bringing to you biblical insights and stories from the country doctor's rusty, dusty scrapbook. Well, I'm delighted today to have as my guest Ms Elena Moore from Palmetto State. Watch, ms Elena, welcome to More Than Medicine.
Speaker 3:Hi Dr Jackson.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me today. Well, I'm delighted to have you and I want you to introduce yourself to my guest and tell them a little bit about who you are and where you're from, and tell them a little bit about Palmetto State Watch.
Speaker 3:Definitely. Well, my name is Elena Moore. I am the co-founder of Palmetto State Watch and the host of the Magnifying Glass podcast. And the host of the Magnifying Glass podcast. I'm a native of South Carolina. I come from many generations in this state and personally I was homeschooled and graduated from Furman University, so my roots are here. I'm not planning to go anywhere and I love this state with all of my heart, which is why I created Palmetto State Watch with my co-founder. Palmetto State Watch is South Carolina's premier watchdog group that exposes corruption, promotes transparency and trains like-minded citizens across the state to create effective change in their local area. And you can find us.
Speaker 2:Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sorry, you can find us at palmetto state. Watch dot com.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a mouthful, I'm telling you. Well, listen, I understand that you had a presentation just earlier this evening over in Gaffney and tell my listeners exactly what your presentation was about.
Speaker 3:So I spoke to the Cherokee GOP in Gaffney and we had a lot of fun. We covered a lot of different topics. Hopefully, hopefully I'll probably end up coming back for more, because we didn't get through everything, but some of the highlights is I just talked about the Freedom of Information Act, also known as FOIA, what that is, how we use it. I talked about a lot of the stories that we have uncovered. One of those stories some of those stories being about election fraud, audit and audit fraud that we found in Aiken County, which resulted in additional audits being required. Talked about the targeting of citizens by DHS when they found issues in South Carolina elections during the 2022 primaries.
Speaker 3:Spoke about a lot of the multi-million dollar lawsuits that the Attorney General went into, and then the HELT czar bill that we helped recently stop this year, and a lot of other topics such as those including talking about the most recent article that I did about the South Carolina constitutional amendment that will be showing up on your ballot this November of 2024. So definitely check out that article so you're prepared, when you go to vote, to answer that important question. Another thing we talked about was the Trojan horse of economic development. This has been really big during Governor McMaster's term. It's been his largest initiative that he's pushed and we dove into how a lot of this economic development that's pouring into South Carolina right now is really smart city initiatives or 15-minute cities that is being pushed by the World Economic Forum through the Biden administration.
Speaker 2:And McMaster's right behind it.
Speaker 3:And he is right behind it. He started a project called Project Connect. That is putting really a lot of South Carolina creating an electric grid, pushing electric vehicle initiatives and bringing in foreign entities that are pushing this electric vehicle plan that is coming through the Biden administration and coming through the WEF as well. In Gaffney, in particular, we looked at a possible electric vehicle-related foreign entity coming in right now.
Speaker 2:And that's in the planning stage in Gaffney. It's not a reality yet. They're just talking about it. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Right and there's not much information coming out. I was sharing with a lot of the constituents in Cherokee County what happened with Scout Motors and what has happened with Silfab Solar in Fort Mills, so we've got two case studies that we can look at. There's plenty of others, but these two in particular. We're seeing the same playbook being used for these foreign entities that McMaster and other South Carolina elected officials are bringing into South Carolina under the guise of jobs, which that's a completely different story we can get into about how it doesn't actually bring jobs. But what we're seeing here is that they have seven tax breaks that the Chamber of Commerce is giving to these foreign entities pushing electric vehicle agendas. So they're all coming in South Carolina is giving them property or giving them a sweet deal on some property and giving them plenty of initiatives to come in and set up shop, and Gaffney is one of those areas that we're seeing right now that's setting up shop.
Speaker 2:Talk about what happened in Columbia with Scout Motors. I don't know that all of my listeners really are in the know about that. In the know about that. You know, if you don't live in Columbia, you may not be privy to everything that happened in Blythewood with the Scout Motor deal. So just talk about how that happened in the background on all of that.
Speaker 3:Right. So Scout Motors was bought out a couple of years ago by, by Volkswagen. Volkswagen is the poster child for ESG economic social growth legislation, which pushes kind of a one world government. So they're a global entity that pushes very one world government legislation. If I'm going to boil it down for you. But they bought out a small American owned company company, a shell company, and created that into really a volkswagen company. But mcmaster, lindsey, graham and several others said oh, it's an american-made company, so it's going to be great. So south carolina went into a bidding war with mississippi to get scout motors, aka volka Volkswagen, into South Carolina. Mississippi was offering I believe it was around $250 million. I think was their deal that they offered. We offered over $1.3 billion.
Speaker 2:Amazing.
Speaker 3:That ended up being $400 million in cash taxpayer money, by the way $400 million in cash that Scout Motors Volkswagen can do whatever they want with Millions and millions in incentives Over 1,600 acres of land in Blythewood, blythewood, and an office in a fully furnished office in Richland County, while South Carolina builds their Scout Motors plant in Blythewood.
Speaker 3:So all of that information came out recently. I believe the nerve is getting sued for releasing some of that information, but South Carolina gave Volkswagen a sweetheart deal that we don't seem to be getting any benefits out of. I know our elected officials said oh well, it's going to create 4,000 jobs, but then if you look at the contract they signed, it's only 400 jobs. And now we're hearing a lot of talks with Scout Motors how they're going to be bringing in a lot of their own people and I'll be surprised if anyone other than janitors in Blythewood will be hired for that plant. But it has torn up the entire Blythewood infrastructure. Scout Motors has been giving free reign to do whatever they want and it's driving a lot of people out of Blythewood right now because you can't breathe anything other than dirt and it's creating so much congestion it it's becoming a nightmare to live in well, that's amazing, and I'm sure the folks that live in the area are not happy about that at all they're not.
Speaker 3:They were promised a lot of things and this it doesn't seem like it's going well there. I don't. I know there's a lot of people worried about runoff because one thing that they did was the elected officials in blythewood lied that they even knew a deal was that Scout was coming in. They told Blythewood and the residents oh well, we had no idea until the General Assembly passed the bill. Come to find out through FOIA. They already knew when we're signing NDAs with Scout Motors and South Carolina to not say anything about it. So they knew well ahead that this company was coming in and would change the lives of Blackwoodians forever and they still went along and lied to their faces.
Speaker 2:Well, the voters in that area need to get rid of their elected officials, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:Well, they did. They actually flipped the mayor's mayoral seat and they flipped a couple of town council seats as well because of it yeah, it's a little too late now, isn't it?
Speaker 3:it really is and one of the things that I'm seeing with a lot of these electric vehicle companies um, if they come in as assembly and they move into land that is zoned as light industrial, well what happens? After they get their permits and qualifications from the needed government agencies, they then switch over to manufacturing, and the difference between assembly and manufacturing is assembly, you're just putting pieces together. You're not really bringing in any deadly chemicals or anything like that. With manufacturing, you're creating the object and you're bringing in pieces together. You're not really bringing in any deadly chemicals or anything like that. With manufacturing, you're creating the object and you're bringing in a lot of chemicals that can be very harmful, especially if they're not disposed of correctly. That's something we're seeing with both Scout Motors and Silphab Solar in Fort Mill. They get zoned for one thing and then they switch to another, and DHEC doesn't seem to mind it at all.
Speaker 2:I understand that Well. And here's the other thing that concerns me, ms Elena, is that the market for electric vehicles in the United States has been plummeting. The major auto manufacturers have been scaling back on their manufacture of electric vehicles dramatically. And here we are in South Carolina building manufacturing plants for batteries in Florence and for electric vehicles in Columbia and perhaps in Gaffney, who knows and the demand for electric vehicles in the United States is plummeting and the major manufacturers realize that. And here in South Carolina we're not taking note of that and we're expending all of this taxpayer money to build manufacturing plants when there's not really going to be a demand for it. The people in the United States are still hooked on fossil fuel driven vehicles and I'm just concerned that the taxpayers in South Carolina are going to be stuck with the bill for battery plants, electric battery plants in Florence and EV manufacturing plants in Columbia and other locations that are never going to prosper and other locations that are never going to prosper.
Speaker 2:I was reading earlier today about the Rivient plant outside of Atlanta. I don't know if it was the city of Atlanta or the state of Georgia that spent $50 million preparing a site for the Rivient truck plant outside of Atlanta and then they never showed up to build the plant. They moved all of their facilities to Illinois and they built their trucks in Illinois and never fulfilled their promise to build a facility on that site outside of Atlanta. And of course, the local residents are furious. The governor in Atlanta is mute and has no explanation for the unfulfilled expectations and all the $50 million that were spent. And I'm just concerned. You know, time will tell. Who knows what will happen in the future, but I'm just concerned that the taxpayers in South Carolina are going to be stuck with a bill for EV manufacturing sites that are never going to fulfill their promises and these plants are going to take our taxpayer money and then they're going to disappear into the night.
Speaker 2:I hope that doesn't happen. I'm promising you. I'm not trying to be the ultimate pessimist here, I'm just trying to be a realist. I see what's happened in other places. You know we look at BMW up in Greer, south Carolina, and it has been a huge economic boom to South Carolina and I would love to say that these EV plants would do the same thing for us. But I'm just telling you I don't think EV is the wave of the future. It's a pie in the sky. It's a green energy mirage. I don't think EV is the wave of the future in America. It's not now and it's not going to be in the future. Americans are not buying EV.
Speaker 3:They're not going for EV and the trends are showing that. The trends are really showing that. I mean Ford, I believe in 2023, was projected in the one year to lose over $ billion dollars in ev. They were projected to lose 5.1 the following year. I haven't loaded the updated numbers, but I mean all of these vehicle manufacturing companies are losing billions and billions. And, as you see, you mentioned rivian. I know it was announced in june, on june 25th, that Rivian secured up to $5 billion from Volkswagen. So you see a lot of these global companies trying to prop each other up in order to survive because Americans are quite literally not buying it.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. And you know these big Ford and General Motors had big dreams of producing EV trucks and all these EV automobiles and they have scaled back dramatically because the demand is not there. And I just don't understand why our legislature and our governor can't see the handwriting on the wall. Can't see the handwriting on the wall. And you know it's foolishness to spend that amount of taxpayer money on a venture that may not ever materialize. Now, florence, just now, florence is building a battery plant with a Japanese company. Now, this Japanese company is reputable. They're building battery plants, car battery and other types of batteries all over the world and you know they're a reputable company. They may do well and you know they may not sell car batteries here in the United States because the man may not be there stage because a man may not be there and they may well.
Speaker 3:It'll be interesting to see if they even get up off the ground because they were. I believe that was the company through the aesc. That's it, that's it yep, they were supposed to start building on building that factory in may and they still haven't started and it's almost october.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who knows, who knows what's going to happen there, and and but the but, the money has already been allocated to that company from our state and, uh, from Florence or Darlington County, whatever county that is, um, and so you know, it's just, it's a fool's errand, in my opinion, to be supporting anything that has to do with EV or batteries, because I just don't see that that's the future in America.
Speaker 3:I completely agree and I think that's why it's important that we keep an eye on what's going on around us. I mean, it feels like daily I'm seeing something. Another announcement of another electric battery electric vehicle plant announcement today I found out that there's a lithium ion battery manufacturer awarded 199 million dollars towards a greenville gigafactory what does that mean?
Speaker 2:what is a?
Speaker 3:gigafactory, a huge, gigantic factory, is what I'm going to say.
Speaker 2:What do they make?
Speaker 3:Maybe it's a data center, oh, maybe a data center, right, but it's a lithium ion cell production facility and part of their funding is coming from the 62 billion bipartisan infrastructure law for battery materials through the DOE.
Speaker 3:So we're seeing I mean we're seeing millions of federal dollars pour into our state because of this and then millions of our own taxpayer dollars from South Carolina as well. So you know, I know it feels like we can't do anything about it, but we've seen in Fort Mill that several citizens stood up and stood against SILFAB coming in and it is making waves. They there are ways to stop this at an early process. And and that's what I was telling everybody in cherokee county tonight, you know we found out that this foreign while we don't know the name of this foreign battery company yet that's moving into the tempcom property. We have found that the taxes are currently sitting on that property are over $388,000 have not been paid in 2024, which suggests that it hasn't been sold yet. So while your elected officials are saying, ah, the deal's done, it's not really looking that way the deal's done.
Speaker 2:It's not really looking that way, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the voters have a voice and it's important for voters to talk to their elected officials. And when elected officials feel the heat, they start seeing the light. And it's important for our voters to be informed. And it's important for you to contact your legislators and let them know how you feel about these issues, because some of these projects are fool's errands. They're not wise, they're foolish, and it's important for you to speak to your legislators, let them know how you feel. When they feel enough heat from enough voters, they'll see the light and they'll decide. It's not wise to spend taxpayer dollars on ventures that may not materialize, that may not turn into jobs, that may not boost the economy. There are other ventures that are much wiser and much more guaranteed.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And going to county council meetings and speaking out is another great way, because a lot of these decisions are made on the town, at the county council level, the town council level and then your local elected officials. We know that speaking out and speaking up works. It's working in Fort Mill, it's worked with the Health CER bill and it's going to be working with a lot of other things coming up right now because people are starting to wake up and they are seeing the issues that are happening on the local level. But it takes all of us.
Speaker 2:to make it happen. We have to be an informed and educated electorate, and we have to be involved at the local level and at the state level. Well, listen, I'm talking with Elena Moore with Palmetto State Watch. Elena, I'm just so grateful to have somebody as well informed as you are, and I hope you'll come back and be on More Than Medicine on another occasion.
Speaker 3:I would love to come back anytime. Dr Jackson, thank you so much for having me, and if your listeners are interested in learning more, they can go to Palmetto State Watch. We're on nine different social media platforms. We also have a weekly newsletter that you can sign up for on our website, and if you would like to support what we're doing, you can also give a donation at palmetto state watch dot com as well.
Speaker 2:All righty Well. Thank you, miss Elena. The Lord bless you real good and we'll be back again next week.
Speaker 1:And may the Lord bless you real good. Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
