A federal trade panel is recommending that Trump impose tariffs as high as 35 percent on solar power technology.
Members of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) have made three different recommendations for restricting solar panel and solar cell imports to the US.
These range from an immediate 30 percent tariff on all imported solar modules to a four-year quota system that allows the import of up to 8.9 gigawatts of solar cells and modules in the first year.
The ITC made a preliminary finding in September that domestic solar manufacturers had been harmed by cheap imports after a complaint brought by bankrupt Georgia-based producer Suniva Inc in April, says another Reuters article.
“The US solar industry let out a collective sigh of relief” as the ITC’s recommendations were less than half what Suniva Inc requested, says Bloomberg.
Other US solar companies had been bracing for higher duties, which they said would have disrupted the $29bn industry, stifling installations and triggering job cuts.
Trump will make a final decision on the restrictions later this year.
The year 2017 is “very likely” to be in the top three warmest years on record, according to provisional figures from the World Meteorological Organization.
The WMO says it will likely be the hottest year in the absence of the El Niño phenomenon.
The scientists argue that the long-term trend of warming driven by human activities continues unabated.
They say many of the “extraordinary” weather events seen this year bear the hallmarks of climate change.
On the opening day of this year’s key UN climate talks, researchers from the WMO have presented their annual State of the Global Climate report.
It follows hot on the heels of their greenhouse gases study from last week which found that concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere were the highest on record.
While the new study only covers January to September, the WMO says the average global temperature was 1.1C above the pre-industrial figure.
This is getting dangerously close to the 1.5 degrees threshold that many island states feel temperatures must be kept under to ensure their survival.
The analysis suggests that 2017 is likely to come in 0.47C warmer than the 1981-2010 average.
This is slightly down on 2016 when the El Niño weather phenomenon saw temperatures that were 0.56C above the average. According to the WMO, this year vies with 2015 to be the second or third warmest mark yet recorded.
“The past three years have all been in the top three years in terms of temperature records. This is part of a long-term warming trend,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
“We have witnessed extraordinary weather, including temperatures topping 50C in Asia, record-breaking hurricanes in rapid succession in the Caribbean and Atlantic, (and) reaching as far as Ireland, devastating monsoon flooding affecting many millions of people and a relentless drought in East Africa.
“Many of these events – and detailed scientific studies will determine exactly how many – bear the tell-tale sign of climate change caused by increased greenhouse gas concentrations from human activities,” he said.
The Caribbean island of Saint-Barthelemy after it was hit by Hurricane Irma
Scientists will have to do attribution studies to clearly link specific events from 2017 to rising temperatures. But they believe the fingerprints of climate change are to be seen in events such as tropical cyclones, where the warmer seas can transfer more heat to the gathering storms and increased sea levels can make flooding more damaging.
The Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index, which measures the intensity and duration of these events, showed its highest ever monthly values in September this year.
It was also the first time that two Category 4 hurricanes made landfall in the same year in the US.
Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 storm for the longest period on record. Rain gauges in Nederland, Texas, recorded 1,539mm, the largest ever recorded for a single event in the mainland US.
Scientists say that extreme heat and drought contributed to many destructive wildfires such as this one in California
There were also significant flooding events with large loss of life in Sierra Leone, in Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Peru among many others.
In contrast, droughts and heatwaves affected many parts of Africa and South America. In Somalia, more than half of cropland was impacted with herds reduced by 40-60%.
More than 11 million people are experiencing severe food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
“This year saw a multitude of damaging weather extremes which is not uncommon but many of these events were made more severe by the sustained warming influence of increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels due to human activities,” said Richard Allan, professor of climate science at the University of Reading, UK.
“An increased severity of weather extremes is expected in the decades ahead as Earth continues to heat up and it is only with the substantive cuts in greenhouse gas emissions required by the Paris climate agreement that we can avert much more potent and widespread damage to our societies and the ecosystems upon which they depend.”
With UN talks on climate change now underway here in Bonn, the report is likely to reinforce a sense of urgency among many delegates.
“These findings underline the rising risks to people, economies and the very fabric of life on Earth if we fail to get on track with the aims and ambitions of the Paris Agreement,” said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, which is hosting the Bonn conference.
The White House has sought to downplay a major climate change report, which was compiled by 13 US federal agencies.
The study is at odds with assertions from President Donald Trump and several members of his administration.
It says it is “extremely likely” human activity is the “dominant cause” of global warming.
A spokesman for the White House said it supported “rigorous scientific analysis and debate” but added that the climate was “always changing”.
White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said it was not certain how sensitive the Earth’s climate was to greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Trump, who has embarked on a tour of Asia, once said the concept of global warming was created by the Chinese in order to make American manufacturing less competitive.
Apocalyptic predictions
It argues that it is “extremely likely” that human activity is causing rapid global warming with dire consequences for the US and the world.
The scientists’ predictions include:
- A global sea level rise of up to 8ft (2.4 metres) cannot be ruled out by the end of the century
- Risks of drought and flooding will increase
- There will be more frequent wildfires and devastating storms
Running to nearly 500 pages, the report concludes that the current period is “now the warmest in the history of modern civilisation”.
It is “extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause”, it finds, adding that “there is no convincing alternative explanation”.
President Trump has made it easier for industry to pollute and he has appointed to key government positions men who are sceptical of their own scientists, the BBC’s James Cook, in Los Angeles, says.
Only on Thursday, Mr Trump’s Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, told US media that while he thought climate change was real and humans had an “impact on it”, he still thought “the science [was] out on” whether humans cause 100% of it.
The researchers say there was no political interference in, or censorship of, their report.
Jamaica, AOSIS formalise position ahead of COP23
Jamaica’s climate negotiators, who are in Germany for the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23), are reporting a good first day of the preparatory meetings leading up to the global climate change conference which runs from November 6-17.The negotiators — led by retired meteorologist Clifford Mahlung and Senior Technical Officer Dr Orville Grey as well as principal director of the Climate Change Division Una May Gordon left the island on Sunday and had their preparatory meeting yesterday. The rest of the 22-member delegation is expected to depart the island next Sunday.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) — the bloc with which Jamaica and other Caricom states negotiate — met to formalise its position going into the conference. The Group of 77 and China will have its preparatory meetings on Thursday and Friday, while Saturday and Sunday are scheduled for round-table discussion.
“The meeting was a success,” Gordon told the Jamaica Observer from Bonn. We had the AOSIS prep then met with the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice chair.”
At the top of the agenda for AOSIS, and by extension Jamaica, is long-term climate financing, without which, it contends, small islands which are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change will not be able to survive.
Developed country parties committed to jointly mobilising US$100 billion annually by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation. Climate Policy Initiative reported in 2015 that global finance flows reached at least US$391 billion in 2014 as a result of a steady increase in public finance and record private investment in renewable technologies.
Jamaica is currently benefiting from one of the climate financing initiatives, having recently received a grant for US$300,000 under Green Climate Fund’s Readiness Programme. The funds are earmarked to develop its physical, technological and human resources to tackle the immense challenges posed by climate change, by strengthening the capacity of the Climate Change Division, the national designated authority in Jamaica. The country has also been approved to receive another grant which the Government says will be used to strengthen the capacity of the private sector to access resources for climate action.
That type of capacity-building, Gordon argued, is critical if the country is to implement strategies to effectively deal with climate change
“Funds are available for climate change adaptation and mitigation, but if we don’t increase and strengthen our capacity to target and access these funds they are going to pass us by,” she said at a consultation with climate change interests in Kingston a week ago.
We recently joined 59 developing countries around the world which have access to funds.
She explained that adapting to and mitigating the threats posed by climate change will require significant outlays of funds, not only for infrastructural projects, but for human resource development as well as for investment in technical and technological advances.
Speaking at that consultation, minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation Daryl Vaz said the impacts will be felt not only in the agriculture industry, but also in tourism, real estate, timber, and equity portfolios. He referenced a UN-ECLAC study, which estimates that the cumulative losses due to loss of marine ecosystems by storm damage and other factors up to 2050 may average as much as US$366 million per year, and pointed to Citigroup data, which showed that global warming could adversely affect the gross domestic product of countries around the world by up to $72 trillion.
“Mitigation costs alone could be in the range of US$140-US$175 billion per year by 2030,” said Vaz.
“Climate change has far-reaching implications for our future, particularly in terms of lives, livelihoods, and the country’s sustainable development goals. As a Government, many of the decisions that we must make in this country must take into consideration job creation, economic growth, and competitiveness, [but] climate change has the potential to disrupt our plans, programmes and projects.
“Long-term financing, therefore, remains one of the critical areas on the agenda of SIDS as we prepare to go into the discussions in Bonn,” he said.
The annual global climate talks are coordinated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Minister without portfolio with responsibility for water, works and housing Dr Horace Chang says the housing sector must be governed by regulations and practices that are sustainable, climate-resilient and will ensure the safety and security of Jamaicans.
He made the comments ahead of the regional housing conference to be hosted by the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, October 18-20 at the Iberostar Rose Hall Suites Hotel, Montego Bay.
The inaugural conference, themed ‘Providing Safe, Legal and Affordable Housing for All: From Policy to Implementation’, is expected to expose some of the issues and, where possible, bring solutions to the housing market. It will also identify best practices that can be used to improve service delivery and innovative approaches to housing.
Areas to be discussed include housing costs and financing, building technology within a changing environment, housing and land tenure, and housing sector management.
“The conference comes at an opportune time given the need to ensure that our houses are built with the best quality materials, which are environmentally friendly, structurally sound and climate-resilient,” stated Minister Chang.
He said these considerations are even more important considering recent devastating hurricanes which have impacted several islands in the Caribbean.
“This need is even more urgent in the face of climate change as our construction industry must adapt to the new realities, and must ensure that our buildings are robust and can withstand the more intense impacts of climate change, with its extreme weather events,” he explained.
In the meantime, Chief Technical Director at the MEGJC with responsibility for water, works and housing Doreen Prendergast said the regional conference has received overwhelming local and international support.
She indicated that representatives from St Lucia, Barbados, Guyana, World Bank, IDB, Cities Alliance, Habitat for Humanity and a representative from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development are scheduled to attend, and in some instances make presentations.
“There is a great need for this type of forum because of the challenges within the housing sector,” said Prendergast. “Challenges pertaining to governance, security of tenure, and housing need and demand that are not being satisfied.”
The ministry has received 26 abstracts from academia for the conference, which are intended to provide an avenue for academia to help chart the policy and planning of the sector.
A section of the Wigton wind farm in Manchester, where PCJ already operates generating capaicty of 63MW. The agency is now looking into the possibility of setting up an offshore wind farm.
Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) has got foreign backing for a prefeasibility study on the prospect of setting up another wind farm, but one that would be anchored out at sea.
An American outfit called Keystone Engineering Inc has been invited to do the study, which PCJ Group General Manager Winston Watson indicated should be finalised by around December 2018.
The study for the offshore wind farm is being financed by a grant from the US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).
“Preliminary work should begin during the final quarter of 2017 and the study is scheduled to last for 12 months,” said Watson. “The results of the study will give an indication of the cost and viability of developing an offshore wind farm for Jamaica,” he told Gleaner Business.
The study is expected to evaluate the viability of installing the wind farm, which would represent one of the first offshore wind installations in Jamaica and the greater Caribbean region.
USTDA links US businesses to export opportunities by funding project-planning activities, pilot projects, and reverse trade missions. The US agency said in a release on the project that the development of the wind farm offers potential export opportunities for a range of American equipment and services related to the design, development, and operation of offshore wind power generation and transmission infrastructure.
Keystone is a Louisiana-based energy firm specialising in the engineering, design, procurement, project management and construction support for offshore wind and oil and gas platforms. The company was the foundation design-engineer for the first offshore wind farm installed in the United States, the 30 MW Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island, USTDA noted.
Watson told Gleaner Business that it was the US agency that approached the PCJ about overseeing the implementation of a grant-funded feasibility study on the prospective offshore wind farm.
He did not indicate the size of the grant, who would develop the facility, nor what the plans were beyond the study.
“At this point it is still too early to comment on the ownership or operational arrangements for any future projects that might be implemented as a result of the study,” the PCJ boss said.
The PCJ currently owns and operates the Wigton wind farm, based at Rose Hill in Manchester. The facility, first established in 2004 and expanded over time, now has generating capacity of nearly 63 MW. Wigton’s total output is now 164,775 MWh per year. It accounts for 6.2 per cent of installed capacity on the national power grid, and 3.7 per cent of Jamaica’s electricity generation
Wigton sells the electricity it generates to the Jamaica Public Service Company, operator of the national grid.
As for the offshore farm, Watson said it was possible the facility could feed both local energy needs and exports.
“It is anticipated that any facilities that may result will provide energy for domestic usage,” he added.
In the USTDA release, Watson was quoted as saying the study would “help the PCJ to get valuable data that can attract overseas investment for the development of our offshore wind resources”.
During remarks delivered to a climate change conference at Yale University, Academy-Award-winning actor and activist Leonardo DiCaprio announced his foundation’s largest-ever portfolio of environmental grants, which includes $120,000 for U.S.-based solar nonprofit RE-volv.
At the Tuesday event, hosted by former Secretary of State John Kerry’s Kerry Initiative, DiCaprio announced that the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation (LDF) awarded $20 million in new grants to more than 100 organizations. According to an LDF press release, the grants have been awarded to help wildlife and habitat conservation, to aid in the defense of indigenous rights, and to support innovative grass-roots efforts aimed at combating climate change and solving complex environmental issues.
During his address at the conference, DiCaprio – LDF founder and chairman and a U.N. Messenger of Peace for Climate Change – said, “We are proud to support the work of over 100 organizations at home and abroad. These grantees are active on the ground, protecting our oceans, forests and endangered species for future generations – and tackling the urgent, existential challenges of climate change.”
DiCaprio went on to push for urgent action to drive a large-scale, global shift from a reliance on fossil fuels to a world powered by renewable energy, saying, “There exist today many proven technologies in renewable energy, clean transportation, and sustainable agriculture, that we can begin to build a brighter future for all of us.”
As part of its major new round of grants, LDF will provide a $120,000 award to the solar nonprofit RE-volv in an effort to expand access to affordable solar energy for nonprofit organizations around the U.S. In a separate press release, RE-volv says the partnership will provide match funding for RE-volv’s unique crowdfunding platform, allowing donors the opportunity to double their contributions with the support of DiCaprio’s foundation.
This is the largest grant to date for RE-volv, a two-time awardee of the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. RE-volv supports solar energy projects for nonprofits that lack access to financing options. According to the group, an estimated 1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S. face financial barriers to obtaining solar power, as they do not qualify for solar tax credits or are too small to attract traditional investors. RE-volv works to help bridge this funding gap for organizations that provide valuable public services to vulnerable communities, including homeless shelters, schools, community centers, and houses of worship.
“RE-volv is working to make sure that the benefits of solar can reach everyone, including nonprofit organizations and the people they serve,” says Andreas Karelas, executive director of RE-volv. “Thanks to this generous grant from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, RE-volv will be able to scale its impact and bring solar to even more nonprofits around the country.”
As the group explains, RE-volv’s crowdfunding platform employs a revolving fund. Donors select a specific nonprofit to support, and as the project pays back dividends through a solar lease agreement, the user can then reinvest in new solar projects through the RE-volv platform. RE-volv says this pay-it-forward model helps to accelerate solar energy deployment in local communities while keeping donors engaged in solar projects.
“The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is excited to support RE-volv,” says Gregory Lopez, LDF’s Climate Program Director. “Not only is their work important in deploying solar energy and reducing greenhouse gasses, [but also] their unique model provides an introduction of accessible, renewable energy to new communities.”
To date, RE-volv says it has raised over $300,000 from over 1,000 people in 22 countries. It has crowdfunded 10 solar projects (150 kW of capacity) in four states, include Harbor House in Oakland, which serves refugee, immigrant, and low-income families with after-school programs and ESL classes; and Morris Chapel Baptist Church, the oldest African American Church in Philadelphia. Thanks to the solar projects, grantees are expected to save between 15% and 40% on their electric bills. In total, these 10 nonprofits will save more than $1.5 million over the life of their solar energy systems. RE-volv says its solar revolving fund, the Solar Seed Fund, is now worth $650,000 in future lease payments from these 10 projects – payments which will be used to finance at least 20 more solar energy projects.
In addition to financing projects, RE-volv trains college students and community volunteers to become Solar Ambassadors, who in turn lead the on-the-ground efforts to deploy solar. RE-volv claims it has also educated 10,000 people about solar energy through training, outreach, and more than 100 events.
Among many other LDF-highlighted grantees are the Solutions Project, whose Fighter Fund and Leadership Fund provide direct grants to community organizations across the U.S. that are fighting for 100% renewable energy, and SunFunder, whose Beyond the Grid Solar Fund vehicle provides affordable access to solar in developing countries in Africa and South Asia. More information on LDF’s $20 million round of new grants is available here.
Despite a strong opposition campaign, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) handed co-petitioners Suniva and SolarWorld Americas a victory in their controversial Section 201 trade case on Friday.
All four designated commissioners voted affirmatively that crystalline silicon photovoltaic (CSPV) cells and modules have been imported into the U.S. in such quantities that it caused, or threatened to cause, serious injury to the domestic CSPV manufacturing industry. The unanimous decision moves the ITC’s global safeguard investigation from the injury phase to the remedy phase, and the commission will ultimately make a remedy recommendation to President Donald Trump. If the ITC had voted against the petition, the case would have ended. Now, Trump will have the final say.
Suniva declares it is “gratified” by the ITC’s vote. “We brought this action because the U.S. solar manufacturing industry finds itself at the precipice of extinction at the hands of foreign market overcapacity,” the company says in a statement. “The ITC has agreed, and now it will be in President Trump’s hands to decide whether America will continue to have the capability to manufacture this energy source. President Trump can remedy this injury with relief that ensures U.S. energy dominance that includes a healthy U.S. solar ecosystem and prevents China and its proxies from owning the sun.”
In a separate release, Juergen Stein, CEO and president of SolarWorld Americas, says, “On behalf of the entire solar cell and panel manufacturing industry, we welcome this important step toward securing relief from a surge of imports that has idled and shuttered dozens of factories, leaving thousands of workers without jobs.”
Meanwhile, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), which led a massive campaign against the case, denounces the decision.
“The ITC’s decision is disappointing for nearly 9,000 U.S. solar companies and the 260,000 Americans they employ,” says Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of SEIA, in a release. “Foreign-owned companies that brought business failures on themselves are attempting to exploit American trade laws to gain a bailout for their bad investments. Analysts say Suniva’s remedy proposal will double the price of solar, destroy two-thirds of demand, erode billions of dollars in investment and unnecessarily force 88,000 Americans to lose their jobs in 2018.”
The Energy Trade Action Coalition (ETAC), a group of companies, associations and organizations that joined together in July to oppose the trade petition, has also spoken out against the ruling.
ETAC Spokesperson Paul Nathanson says, “Utilities, power co-ops, retailers, manufacturers and other large commercial users, along with conservative groups who have criticized federal solar subsidies, all agree that unwarranted tariffs would cause severe damage to the solar industry while setting a terrible precedent for future trade cases.”
The ITC officially launched its probe in May after Georgia-based bankrupt manufacturer Suniva filed a Section 201 petition, and facing troubles of its own, Oregon-based SolarWorld Americas later joined as a co-petitioner. The two companies have argued that Chinese-owned suppliers set up shop in other markets to successfully avoid U.S. tariffs and that a continued glut of cheap imports into the U.S. makes it difficult for domestic manufacturers to compete. (Notably, SolarWorld has a German parent and Suniva is majority owned by a Chinese company, which itself opposed the Section 201 petition.)
The obscure Section 201 mechanism is unlike the previous SolarWorld-led U.S. trade actions against Chinese and Taiwanese solar imports. As the ITC explains in a fact sheet, “Global safeguard investigations do not require a finding of an unfair trade practice such as under the U.S. countervailing duty law (a foreign subsidy) or the antidumping duty law.”
Furthermore, the investigations “are not country specific,” meaning any new import tariffs or other remedy would be implemented on a global scale, rather than focus on CSPV products from a particular country. However, the fact sheet says the commissioners were “required to make additional separate findings for certain countries with which the U.S. has free-trade agreements.”
In fact, an ITC press release indicates that, of those free-trade agreement partners, the commission did not find injury on Friday with respect to CSPV imports from Canada and Singapore, as well as from Australia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Jordan, Panama and Peru. The commission did, however, make affirmative injury determinations for free-trade partners Mexico and Korea.
The ITC decision follows an hours-long hearing in August during which the co-petitioners, SEIA and other stakeholders testified. SEIA has rallied solar companies, legislators and other stakeholders against the petition ever since Suniva initiated the case, but in the lead-up to Friday’s vote, SolarWorld and Suniva garnered public support from a number of groups. In a recent analysis, the co-petitioners claimed the proposed trade actions would lead to at least 114,800 new jobs across all solar industry segments – a finding that contradicts an earlier SEIA analysis claiming that 88,000 U.S. solar jobs would be lost next year if the ITC imposes the trade protections.
In a statement, Andrea Luecke, president and executive director of The Solar Foundation, says, “This decision brings yet more uncertainty to an industry that has created real value for the United States.”
“Our National Solar Jobs Census finds the dramatic growth in U.S. solar employment over the past several years was driven by the sharply reduced cost of installations,” she states. “Any new tariffs are likely to increase costs and reduce demand for installations, disrupting the solar jobs market that now employs 260,000 workers in the United States and is valued in the tens of billions of dollars. The next update to our Solar Jobs Census will include more information and analysis on how this decision will impact American solar jobs.”
Next Steps
As mentioned, the ITC will now move forward to the remedy phase, which will include more stakeholder input and another hearing on Oct. 3. The commission will make its recommendation to Trump on Nov. 13, and the president will then have about two months to decide whether to adopt that recommendation or another remedy – if one at all.
However, it should be noted that Trump and his team have previously singled out Section 201 as a potential remedy for other trade issues and the president reportedly reiterated a call for tariffs recently.
In its petition, Suniva proposed an initial import tariff of $0.40/W per CSPV cell and a minimum import price of $0.78/W per CSPV module (which is inclusive of the $0.40/W cell tariff). Several analysts have said that would essentially double the current price of solar modules and make those imported into the U.S. the most expensive in the world.
Although SolarWorld did not propose its own remedy after joining the petition, Tim Brightbill, the company’s trade counsel and partner at Wiley Rein LLP in Washington, D.C., recently verified during an interview at the Solar Power International trade show, “We support Suniva’s remedy proposal.”
Nonetheless, SolarWorld’s Stein says in his Friday statement, “In the remedy phase of the process, we will strive to help fashion a remedy that will put the U.S. industry as a whole back on a growth path. We will continue to invite the Solar Energy Industries Association and our industry partners to work on good solutions for the entire industry. It is time for the industry to come together to strengthen American solar manufacturing for the long term.”
SEIA’s Hopper says, “While we continue to believe that this is the wrong decision, based on Suniva and SolarWorld’s mismanagement, we respect the commission’s vote and we will continue to lead the effort to protect the solar industry from damaging trade relief. We expect to be front and center in the ITC remedy process and in the administration’s consideration of this deeply flawed case.
“As the remedy phase moves forward, I am determined to reach a conclusion that will protect the solar industry, our workers and the American public from what amounts to a shakedown by these two companies,” she continues. “An improper remedy will devastate the burgeoning American solar economy and ultimately harm America’s manufacturers and 36,000 people currently engaged in solar manufacturing that don’t make cells and panels.”
ETAC’s Nathanson adds, “ETAC will continue to fight vigorously during the remedy phase, encouraging administration officials and members of Congress to help ensure that no remedies are imposed that would threaten the solar industry’s ability to compete with other energy sources.”
In an emailed statement, Tony Clifford, chief development officer of Maryland-based solar provider Standard Solar, says, “Anyone closely involved with watching how this trade petition wended its way through the U.S. International Trade Commission process always had a sneaking suspicion the final decision would end up with President Donald J. Trump. The ITC did its due diligence and, after much deliberation, decided these two foreign-owned module makers were indeed harmed by module imports from other countries – but fortunately, today’s decision is only the beginning, not the ending, of the story.”
Clifford adds, “Now the ITC begins its deliberations about what remedies should be imposed on imports, and this will be where the real effects on the industry will be determined. I hope the ITC will conclude only minimal or no tariff increases are necessary. Otherwise, the U.S. solar industry could lose 88,000 or more jobs. I’d also remind President Trump that two-thirds of the solar jobs in America do not require any college education. Losing 88,000 jobs, most of which are blue collar, is a lot for the American economy – and President Trump’s base in particular – to absorb.”
An Associated Press report cites White House spokesperson Natalie Strom as saying Trump “will examine the facts and make a determination that reflects the best interests of the United States. The U.S. solar manufacturing sector contributes to our energy security and economic prosperity.”
Morten A. Lund, a partner at Stoel Rives and chair of the law firm’s Solar Energy Initiative, says, “The president will have significant discretion in whether to move forward with any remedy recommended by the United States International Trade Commission, including the discretion to modify the recommended remedy. He will probably decide with advice from the United States Trade Representative and advisors.
“With a 4-0 vote, it seems likely that the president will impose a remedy or risk backlash from ignoring a unanimous vote of injury from the USITC, the country’s trade watchdog,” Lund continues. “The remedy hearing and process will tell us a lot about how much the commission will consider the impact on the greater solar industry or energy sector in fashioning a remedy. The president has shown a strong protectionist leaning in trade matters, particularly with regard to China, and is known to favor tariffs generally. That would tend to support an expectation that he will implement a remedy.”
According to the ITC fact sheet, a Section 201 remedy is “temporary,” and “the initial period of relief cannot be longer than four years.” The fact sheet adds, “If extended, the effective period of relief cannot exceed eight years in the aggregate.”