DALTON, Ga. — Vice President Kamala Harris visited a North Georgia solar panel manufacturing plant Thursday afternoon, and in an exclusive interview with Channel 2 Action News, Harris said she sees clean energy as the future of America’s economy.
So does Georgia’s governor, but that’s where the agreements end.
Harris toured Dalton’s QCells plant Thursday to tout the Biden administration’s multi-billion-dollar investment into Georgia’s clean energy industry. She said it helped grow jobs like these.
QCells builds solar panels and just announced it’s investing another $2.5 billion to expand the plant and to open a new one in Cartersville.
After the vice president addressed the crowd, Channel 2′s Richard Elliot spoke to her exclusively about why she thinks QCells and other solar panel plants are critical for the US economy.
“Right here in Dalton, Georgia, we are looking at some of the most significant US-based manufacturing by American workers of solar panels around the country and around the world,” Harris said.
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Harris told Elliot that the Biden administration’s efforts have spurred billions of dollars in investments to Georgia.
“Because of our work, we have spurred over $31 billion in private investment in manufacturing right here in Georgia,” Harris said.
“Yeah, we did that project four years ago,” Gov. Brian Kemp told Elliot, in another exclusive interview.
Kemp pointed out that his economic team helped bring QCells to Georgia, and while he may agree that clean energy industry can be vital to Georgia, he disagrees on how the Biden administration is approaching it.
“These things were happening generically, and they were already happening in Georgia. But I’m glad that they’re here celebrating two-and-a-half years of record economic development success in our state,” Kemp said.
The QCell expansion in Dalton and the new plant in Cartersville should mean about 2,500 new jobs in Georgia.
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