President Biden takes heat over investigation into Asian solar panels

An investigation by the Department of Commerce into whether solar manufacturers in southeast Asia are circumventing U.S. trade law threatens to shut down solar development in the United States, solar energy developers and power companies claim. The Biden administration opened an investigation Monday into claims by a California solar panel manufacturer that its competitors in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam were covertly shipping panels made in China, to avoid U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. If the investigation were to show solar panels from those countries were actually made in China, solar panels from those countries, which represent approximately 80 percent of the market here, would be subject to tariffs.

That is likely to put many projects under development on hold, said Heather Zichal, a former Obama administration official and now president of the American Clean Power Association. “The Department of Commerce’s decision today signals that the Biden Administration’s talk of supporting solar energy is empty rhetoric," she said. "If its commitment to a clean energy future is real, the administration will reverse this decision immediately. America’s solar workers and the clean energy community are watching and will remember." The Biden administration has set the goal of rapidly expanding the nation's solar energy generation in a bid to address climate change, while also expanding the manufacturing of solar panels here. But at present developers largely rely on cheap solar panels from Asia to make their projects viable, presenting the Biden administration with a conundrum on how to reduce emissions while protecting American jobs. In a separate announcement Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimond said, "we are positioning America’s workers and businesses for success in the 21st century. And all Americans, especially those that have been historically excluded, will share in our prosperity.”