"There was a report last week about how Ford's F-150 Lightning, their electric EV truck, is contributing to high pollution and deforestation in the Amazon,” a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during Monday's press briefing.
“Does President Biden regret endorsing that truck back in 2021? And has anyone talked to Ford about how they should source aluminum for the frame from a different mine?”
"No, [he] does not regret that and [I] don’t have any conversation to read out on that,” Jean-Pierre replied.
The report referenced was published in US media on Monday and found that the aluminum used in the Lightning’s lightweight frame comes from the Mineração Rio do Norte bauxite mine on the Trombetas River, a tributary of the Amazon in northern Brazil.
The report found that the massive strip mine has destroyed water quality nearby, making locals sick and killing the fish. Requests by the mine operator, which is owned by a conglomeration of Brazilian, Australian, and Norwegian interests, to expand its operations have been rejected twice by Brazilian regulators for not sufficiently consulting neighboring communities.
Moreover, the bauxite ore it produced is shipped downstream to a huge processing facility outside Belem, the Alunorte refinery, owned by Norsk Hydro ASA, one of the mine’s investors. The Alunorte refinery is the largest aluminum maker outside of China and has been repeatedly caught and fined for discharging into nearby rivers. Water and medical tests have found an aluminum concentration in the water and in local residents that is dozens of times higher than is safe.
Biden visited Ford’s facility in Dearborn, Michigan, when the US automaker launched the Lightning EV truck in May 2021. Video of him test-driving the truck, including testing its acceleration abilities, went viral on social media.
“This sucker’s quick,” Biden quipped to reporters from behind the wheel. It has a zero-to-sixty acceleration of just 4.5 seconds, according to the company.
“The future of the auto industry is electric - there’s no turning back,” Biden later said at a press conference. “The real question is whether we will lead or we’ll fall behind in the race for the future.”
Ford’s Lightning recently faced a pause in its production at Dearborn after the massive lithium-ion battery on one of the trucks erupted in flames during a pre-delivery quality check at the facility. The automaker has set the lofty goal of selling 150,000 Lightnings this year - 10 times what it sold last year.