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**MAY 15, 2023**
Kuttner on TAP
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**** Biden's Bind on Solar
Should he go all out to support domestic manufacture, or keep the flow
of solar panels coming from China?
For the most part, the administration's industrial-policy goals and
its climate goals operate in lockstep. The strategy: bring more advanced
technology and production home, the better to achieve a green-energy
transition, and at the same time reduce reliance on China.
But when it comes to solar, the administration is at cross-purposes with
itself. Some parts of the domestic solar industry want the
administration's help in building a truly domestic manufacturing
sector, with components as well as finished panels made in USA. But
other domestic producers are heavily reliant on components made in
China. Then there is the solar installation industry, which wants a
continuing supply of cheap panels, of which China remains the leading
supplier.
Last week, the administration once again sided with the parts of the
domestic industry that are cozy with Chinese suppliers, despite
China's heavy reliance on Uyghur forced labor to produce solar
supplies. Despite Congress's near-unanimous passage of the Uyghur
Forced Labor Prevention Act in December 2021, Biden has done his best to
help China circumvent that law.
Both houses of Congress recently passed a joint resolution overturing an
earlier Biden order delaying for two years imposition of special tariffs
on Chinese solar panels diverted through Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia,
and Vietnam to disguise their true origin. But the White House quickly
said that Biden would veto the bill
<[link removed]>.
Score one for China and its U.S. solar allies.
Meanwhile, those American manufacturers who want to accelerate
development of a true domestic solar industry criticized another Biden
policy-the administration's newly released policy on tax credits
<[link removed]>.
The Treasury published guidelines Friday that said facilities assembling
solar panels in the United States would qualify for an additional 10
percent tax credit, even if the silicon wafers used to make those panels
were imported from foreign countries.
Mike Carr, the executive director of the Solar Energy Manufacturers for
America Coalition, which includes solar companies with U.S. operations
like Hemlock Semiconductor, Wacker Chemie, Qcells, and First Solar,
termed the policy "a missed opportunity to build a domestic solar
manufacturing supply chain
<[link removed]>."
He added that China produces 97 percent of the world's solar wafers
and that Treasury's policy "will likely result in the scaling back of
planned investments in the critical areas of solar wafer, ingot, and
polysilicon production."
Biden will face criticism no matter which course he chooses. But if he
is serious about supplanting U.S. solar dependence on China, there is no
substitute for accelerating domestic development of the entire solar
supply chain.
~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Manchin Again?!
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In search of a deal on energy (and maybe the debt ceiling), the White
House puts the West Virginia senator at the center of the action. BY
HAROLD MEYERSON
What Happens if President Biden Caves on the Debt Ceiling?
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Today's X-Date: A two-year spending cap is going to harm millions of
Americans. BY RYAN COOPER
The FCC's Enduring Split
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More than halfway into the Biden administration, Democrats don't have
a majority at a key agency. The likely nominee to end that has plenty of
experience but a corporate past. BY DAVID DAYEN
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