WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Monday ordered emergency measures to increase crucial supplies to U.S. solar manufacturers and declared a two-year tariff exemption on Southeast Asian solar panels as it tried to boost progress toward to its goals of combating climate change.
Its invocation of the Defense Production Act and its other enforcement actions come amid complaints from industry groups that the solar sector is slowing down due to supply chain problems due to a Department investigation of Trade on possible trade violations of Chinese products. The news of the White House’s actions caused solar power companies to gain ground on Wall Street.
The Commerce Department announced in March that it was examining imports of solar panels from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, concerned that products from those countries are circumventing US anti-dumping rules that limit imports from China.
When asked at the White House if the Biden tariff break was not a gift to China, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she was invoking the Defense Production Act, “to make sure that is delivering to the American people. “
“It’s putting all the strength of the federal government into supporting American clean energy producers,” Jean-Pierre said.
White House officials said Biden’s actions are aimed at increasing domestic production of solar panel parts, building installation materials, high-efficiency heat pumps and other components, including cells. Cells used for fuels generated with clean energy. They described the tariff suspension affecting imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia as a bridge measure, while other efforts increase domestic solar energy production, although the administration continues to support US trade laws. and to the investigation of the Department of Commerce.
Commerce Department Secretary Gina Raimondo told a Senate panel in May that solar research follows a process established by law that does not allow for climate change, supply chains or other factors. On Monday, he said he remains “committed to upholding our trade laws and ensuring that American workers have a chance to compete on equal terms.”
“The president’s emergency statement ensures that U.S. households have access to reliable, clean electricity, while ensuring that we have the capacity to hold our business partners accountable for their commitments,” Raimondo said in a statement. .
Clean energy leaders have long warned that the investigation, which could lead to retroactive rates of up to 240%, would severely hamper the U.S. solar industry, causing thousands of layoffs and endangering up to 80% of solar projects planned nationwide.
The department replies that rates in excess of 200% for solar products would not apply to the vast majority of imports. Instead, they usually apply to non-cooperative companies that cannot differentiate themselves from the Chinese government or the Communist Party.
However, any possible punishment could have jeopardized one of Biden’s main clean energy goals and run counter to his administration’s push for renewable energy, such as wind and solar. , argue the defenders.
“The president’s announcement will rejuvenate the construction and domestic manufacturing of solar energy by restoring the predictability and business certainty that the Department of Commerce’s faulty research has altered,” said Heather Zichal, director general of the American Association of Clean Energy and former Obama administration official. a statement Monday.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, applauded Biden’s “reflective approach to addressing the current paralyzed solar supply chain crisis.”
“Today’s actions will protect existing solar jobs, lead to increased employment in the solar industry and foster a solid solar manufacturing base here at home,” Ross Hopper said in a statement.
But not everyone in the industry supported it.
First Solar Inc., a major solar panel maker, said the tariff freeze would give “free access to state-subsidized solar companies for the next two years” and that the use of the law of defense production is “an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars and falls. far from a lasting solar industrial policy.”
“The administration cannot put a band-aid on the issue and wait for it to go away,” Samantha Sloan, the company’s vice president of policy, said in a statement.
The use of executive action comes when the Biden administration’s clean energy tax cuts and other major proposals aimed at boosting domestic green energy production have stalled in Congress.
The Defense Production Act allows the federal government to direct manufacturing production for national defense and has become a more widely used tool by presidents in recent years. The Trump administration used it to produce medical equipment and supplies during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden invoked his authority in April to increase production of lithium and other minerals used to power electric vehicles. Last month, it used it again to prioritize increasing the country’s baby formula supplies amid a domestic shortage caused by the security-related closure of the country’s largest formula factory.
Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program, said in a statement that Biden’s announcement could “give a critical boost to the necessary transition to solar energy.”
“We hope that this use of the Defense Production Act will be a turning point for the President, who must use all his executive powers to deal with the climate emergency,” Su said.