

Midwest freefall install#
HAMI, CHINA - AUGUST 22: (CHINA OUT) Construction workers install solar panels at Hami Solar Power Station on Augin Hami, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

The report noted that China "dominates global solar supply chains and mounting evidence indicates that solar products and inputs at nearly every step of the production process, from raw silicon material mining to final solar module assembly, are linked to known or probably forced labor programs." It also found that Chinese solar companies controlled 70 percent of the global supply for solar-grade polysilicon, 45 percent of which was manufactured in Xinjiang. Trade Representative issued an extraordinary document called "Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory," which found that the Chinese government "continues to carry out genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang." This is remarkable because last July, the departments of State, Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, Labor, and the Office of the U.S. Missing from that declaration is any mention of China, Xinjiang, Uyghurs, or last year's import restrictions. Biden went on to "declare an emergency to exist with respect to the threats to the availability of sufficient electricity generation capacity to meet expected customer demand." "Immediate action is needed to ensure in the interim that the United States has access to a sufficient supply of solar modules to assist in meeting our electricity generation needs," wrote the White House in a June 6 statement.

The president made the move by declaring that the solar situation is an emergency. It's also a signal that his administration is more interested in pandering to the renewable-energy lobby group than it is in taking a courageous stand on human rights or defending existing nuclear plants. In doing so, Biden effectively neutered the restrictions that were imposed just 12 months ago.īiden's move is a gift to China. On Monday, President Joe Biden reversed course and declared a two-year tariff exemption on solar panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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Last June, the Biden administration was so concerned about China's use of Uyghur Muslim slave labor to produce the polysilicon needed for solar panels that it imposed bans on imports of that product from some Chinese manufacturers.īut that was last year, before the domestic solar industry went into free fall due to a Commerce Department investigation into allegations of dumping that effectively halted the import of solar panels from four southeast Asia countries that were accused of circumventing tariffs on goods made in China.
