WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden on Monday ordered urgent action to increase solar panel production in the United States and announced a two-year duty-free exemption for panel panels in Southeast Asia as he tried to boost the industry, a key to his goals. climate change.
His reference to the Defense Manufacturing Act and other executive actions comes amid complaints from industry groups that the solar sector is slowing down supply chain problems due to an ongoing investigation by the Commerce Department into possible trade violations involving Chinese products.
The Commerce Department said in March that it was inspecting imports of solar panels from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, worried that products from those countries were circumventing US anti-dumping rules that restrict imports from China.
Solar companies won positions in Monday morning trading on Wall Street.
White House officials said Biden’s actions were aimed at increasing domestic production of solar panel parts, building materials, high-efficiency heat pumps and other components such as cells used for clean energy fuels. They called the suspension of tariffs on imports from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia a bridge measure, while other efforts boosted domestic solar production – even as the administration continued to support US trade laws and the Commerce Department’s investigation.
The Ministry of Trade defended its investigation. Secretary Gina Raimondo told a Senate committee in May that the investigation into solar energy follows a process set by law that does not allow consideration of climate change, supply chains or other factors.
Yet clean energy leaders have warned since then that the investigation – which could lead to retroactive tariffs of up to 240% – will seriously hamper the US solar industry, leading to thousands of cuts and threatening up to 80% of planned solar projects around the country. This could jeopardize Biden’s main goal of clean energy and run counter to his Democratic administration’s insistence on renewable energy such as wind and solar.
“The president’s announcement will rejuvenate the construction and domestic production of solar energy by restoring the predictability and security of businesses that a misdemeanor investigation by the Department of Commerce has violated,” said Heather Zihal, chief executive of the American Clean Energy Association and a former employee. the Obama administration. statement on monday.
Others struck similar tones. Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Industries Association, welcomed Biden’s “careful approach to tackling the current crisis in the paralyzed solar supply chain.”
“Today’s actions protect existing solar jobs, increase employment in the solar industry and promote a solid base for solar production here at home,” Ross Hopper said in a statement.
But the move drew sharp criticism from major solar panel maker First Solar Inc., which said the tariff freeze provided “unhindered access to state-subsidized solar companies in China for the next two years” and that the use of the Manufacturing Act on defense is “inefficient use of taxpayer dollars and a lack of sustainable solar industrial policy.”
“The administration cannot put a band-aid on the issue and hope it disappears,” Samantha Sloan, the company’s vice president of policy, said in a statement.
The use of enforcement action comes as the Biden administration’s cuts in clean energy taxes and other major proposals designed to boost domestic green energy production have stopped in Congress.
The Defense Proceedings Act allows the federal government to direct production proceedings to national defense and has become a tool more commonly used by presidents in recent months. President Donald Trump’s administration used it to produce medical equipment and supplies in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden reiterated his authority last month to prioritize increasing the supply of infant formula in the country amid an internal shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country’s largest formula factory.
Jean Su, director of the Center for Biodiversity’s energy justice program, said in a statement that Biden’s announcement could “give a critical impetus to the necessary transition to solar energy.”
“We hope that this use of the Defense Proceedings Act is a turning point for the president, who must use all his executive powers to deal directly with the climate emergency,” Su said.
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