There should be no automotive belt — or Battery Belt — that doesn’t include Michigan as its buckle.

But that’s not what the Biden administration’s Department of Energy, led by Energy Secretary and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, seems to think.

The DOE announced last week that it would fund $2.8 billion in grants to stimulate domestic electric vehicle battery production across a dozen states. The projects will focus on battery mineral processing or component manufacturing.

But none of the first-round funding is coming to Michigan, despite the fact that it remains the largest auto-producing state in the nation. With the exception of a lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Lancaster, Ohio, all of the funding goes outside the industrial Midwest.

Most of the money went to southeastern states with heavy foreign electric car investment, earning the region the “Battery Beltî” designation.

That the Granholm-led Energy Department found Michigan — with its production, mining, workforce and manufacturing capabilities — not worthy of part of the $2.8 billion is a denial of the state’s past, present and its future in the automotive industry.

Michigan is doing everything it can to prepare for the coming EV transition, including offering massive corporate incentives to attract new electric vehicle production, as well as for manufacturing critical component parts such as semiconductor chips and batteries.

Given the nation’s vulnerability to tensions in Asia, particularly between China and Taiwan, where the vast majority of all semiconductors globally are produced, the United States must boost domestic production of those components. Putting funding into preparing for the electric vehicle future is important for the U.S. economy, as well as national security.

But Biden’s lack of faith in Michigan, as well as Granholm’s, is insulting. It effectively excludes Michigan’s contribution to the industry and handicaps its ability to compete with other states eager to grab pieces of its core industry.

The funding snub illuminates some stern realities within the global automotive market and its workforce.

Michigan will continue to be pressured by the Southeast, which offers a base of foreign automakers and a non-unionized workforce.

Even the Detroit Three is susceptible. Last year, Ford Motor Co. and its battery manufacturing partner SK Innovation chose to invest $11.4 billion in Kentucky and Tennessee as it ramps up its electric-vehicle and battery plan. The windfall from that project is 11,000 jobs.

Still, Detroit leads in auto production, and Biden has given lip service to wanting to help the Motor City retain that position.

Meanwhile, the DOE funding will help create battery-grade lithium to supply 2 million EVs annually, enough graphite for 1.2 million EVs and enough nickel for 400,000 EVs, Biden officials said. The department said it favored states near sources of that material.

But Michigan is home to the nation’s only nickel mining production site, the Upper Peninsula’s Eagle Mine. The mineral helps boost energy storage in lithium-ion batteries and therefore increases how far an electric vehicle can drive on a single charge.

Energy Department officials said Michigan might receive funding for projects in the future, depending on which part of the supply chain we’re solving for.î

That’s not very reassuring.

With such a strong manufacturing and production infrastructure already in place, Michigan deserves to be on the short list of funding. It has contributed significantly to the nation’s automotive history. It’s prepared to keep doing so in the electric vehicle era.

— The Detroit News