Attorneys for the Chinese Communist Party-linked Gotion want a federal appeals court to force local officials to accept its planned battery component plant in Green Charter Township.

Officials with the township just want the company to go away.

As the legal saga over Gotion’s secretly negotiated development agreement slogs through a second year, a panel of three federal appeals court judges in Cincinnati on Thursday considered whether to uphold a lower court order forcing the township to honor the contract while the case proceeds, Bridge Michigan reports.

The agreement, approved by a since recalled GCT board in 2023, includes provisions to extend municipal water lines to carry as much as 715,000 gallons of water a day to the site, or about 130,000 gallons more per day than Nestle’s nearby Ice Mountain bottled water facility.

“We don’t think Gotion has … a vested right to any of the damages they’re claiming,” Robby Dube, GCT attorney, told the news site.

The dispute centers on Gotion’s plans for a $2.3 billion plant to build EV battery components that came with $715 million in taxpayer-funded incentives negotiated in secret by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration and select lawmakers.

The agreement, inked in when Democrats held a government trifecta in 2022, was touted by Whitmer as “the biggest ever economic development project in Northern Michigan” with a promise of “2,350 good-paying jobs.”

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While it was initially approved by GCT’s board in August 2023, voters recalled all members of the board over the support, installing new board members that immediately moved to kill the deal over concerns about Gotion’s close ties to the Chinese Communist Party and environmental impacts.

The change prompted Gotion to file a lawsuit against the township for breach of the development agreement, and Judge Jane M. Beckering issued a preliminary injunction in May 2024 ordering the township to comply.

The township has since appealed that decision to the U.S. Six Circuit Court of Appeals, as Michigan Republican Congressman John Moolenaar and others have worked to raise awareness about Gotion’s strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party uncovered through Moolenaar’s role as chair of the House Select Committee on the CCP.

It’s unclear when the appeals court might rule on the preliminary injunction.

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Gotion attorney Scott Hamilton, with the Michigan law firm Dickinson Wright, told the appeals court Thursday Gotion stands to lose million of dollars from the delays, but could not provide calculations to justify the claim, Bridge reports.

Hamilton said Gotion was “beginning to gear up and actually begin the construction and do the things necessary to get the construction” when GCT reversed course on granting water access.

“We came in, we negotiated a contract with the township,” he told the court. “The township was more than happy to execute that contract and bound themselves contractually to doing certain things … to make this project a reality.”

Hamilton pointed to provisions of Gotion’s development agreement that require the company to meet employment targets by 2031, noting the state can deny it’s taxpayer-funded incentives if the goal isn’t met.

Local officials who testified before the Michigan House Subcommittee on Corporate Subsidies and State Investments on Wednesday shared a different perspective.

“It must be understood that the township did not choose to litigate Gotion,” Township Supervisor Jason Kruse told the committee. “Gotion chose to bring litigation against the township that they would like to work in.”

Kruse told lawmakers the township of about 3,200 operates on 1.25 mills. That equates to roughly $1 million, and the township has budgeted $230,000 of that to cover its legal expenses to fight back against Gotion, according to media reports.

The Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which is controlled by Whitmer appointees, has defended Gotion, despite widespread concerns about the company’s close ties to the CCP.

In a statement Wednesday, MEDC insisted the project has support across Mecosta County, Green Charter Township and Big Rapids Township, and it poses no national security risks.

“The MEDC works closely with local partners that in turn work closely with the community to make sure there is support for these projects,” read the statement cited by Bridge.

The developments this week follow GCT’s request last month for the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review Gotion’s planned facility.

“It has never been done, and I want to close that loop,” Kruse told the township board. “It is not going to cost anything to make that happen.”

CIFIUS  is tasked with protecting U.S. national security by reviewing transactions that could lead to foreign control of U.S. businesses or foreign investments in critical technologies, infrastructure, or sensitive data. With a CFIUS recommendation, President Donald Trump can suspend or prohibit transactions that pose a threat to national security.

“The Gotion plant would be very bad for the State and our Country. It would put Michiganders under the thumb of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing,” Trump posted to Truth Social in August.

In late March, Gotion CEO Chuck Thelen confirmed the company has halted its environmental studies and permitting process through the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy as its legal battle with the township drags into year two.

Thelen previously told the media Gotion would continue to pursue the permits amid the legal wrangling.

In January, a newly elected Mecosta County board of commissioners also pulled support for Gotion, citing “92% of … Mecosta County residents” who oppose the plant and “new information and developments” regarding Gotion’s direct ties to the CCP.

Multiple polls have shown local residents strongly oppose the Gotion plant.

Moolenaar has repeatedly pointed to federal filings that admit Gotion is “wholly owned and controlled” by parent company Gotion High-Tech, and receives subsidies from the Chinese government.

Gotion High-Tech employes hundreds of CCP members and hosts field trips for those employees to pledge their lives to the CCP.

“Since the company announced its project in 2022, it has been discovered an executive at the company attends meetings of the parent company’s internal CCP committee,” according to Moolenaar. “Last year, an investigation conducted by the Select Committee on the CCP … found that Gotion’s supply chain is reliant on forced labor that is a part of the CCP’s ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims, a religious minority in China.”

While Moolenaar champions legislation to block Gotion from receiving federal tax credits and the Department of Homeland Security from relying on foreign made batteries from Gotion and others, Republicans in Michigan are looking to cover the legal bills for Green Charter Township’s fight against the company.

State Rep. Tom Kunse, R-Clare, submitted an appropriations request for $275,000 to cover the legal expenses he said stemmed from state officials ignoring the will of locals, according to the Manistee News Advocate.

“The state of Michigan forced Green Charter Township into a position that the majority of the residents oppose,” Kunse said in his request for funding. “The actions by the state left the township with no choice but to take legal action to protect their community. As a result, the township has been burdened with legal fees and costs that were incurred only because of the state’s actions. It is fair that the state of Michigan takes responsibility and helps cover these expenses.”