WASHINGTON, D. C. - The U.S. Senate voted 56-41 on Wednesday to overturn the Biden administration’s suspension of tariffs on Chinese solar product parts that go through other countries, with nine Democrats including Ohio’s Sherrod Brown joining with Republicans to pass the measure.
“This vote presents a pretty simple choice: Do you stand with American manufacturers and American workers or do you stand with China and do you stand with our continuing to lose our industrial base?” Brown, of Cleveland, said in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.
U.S. Sen. JD Vance, a Cincinnati Republican, cosponsored the measure and voted to approve it.
“I think it’s really important that if we’re going to have a clean energy economy, that it should be made in the United States and not in China,” Vance said Thursday. “And I think that, unfortunately, a lot of what the Biden administration has done from a regulatory perspective, also from a subsidy perspective, has actually built up the clean energy economy in China.”
As part of an effort to promote more solar energy use in the United States, President Joe Biden last year announced a two-year ban on tariffs for solar panels and parts that originate in China but are imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The point was to ensure an adequate supply of solar panels while domestic production ramps up.
The administration’s stance vexed Ohio solar manufacturers, such as Arizona-based First Solar, which produces solar panels in Perrysburg, Ohio. A statement from the company said the policy would undermine U.S. solar manufacturers “by giving unfettered access to China’s state-subsidized solar companies for the next two years.”
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted to reject the tariffs on Friday, with 12 Democrats, including Toledo’s Marcy Kaptur, joining the bulk of its Republicans to pass the measure by a 212 to 202 margin.
The White House announced last week that President Biden would veto the joint resolution. It said the United States is on track to increase domestic solar panel manufacturing capacity eight-fold by the end of Biden’s first term, but time is needed too boost production. It described the tariff suspension as “a temporary, 24- month bridge for the import of certain solar cells or modules.
“This rule is necessary to satisfy the demand for reliable and clean energy while ensuring Commerce is able to rigorously enforce U.S. trade laws, hold trading partners accountable, and defend U.S. industries and workers from unfair trade actions,” the veto announcement said. “Passage of this joint resolution would undermine these efforts and create deep uncertainty for jobs and investments in the solar supply chain and the solar installation market.”
Because the measure did not pass the House or Senate by a two-thirds majority, it’s unlikely that Congress will be able to override Biden’s veto. Brown said Biden’s veto would “set us back a couple more years” in bringing jobs to the United States and “insourcing” production of solar materials.
Other Senate Democrats argued against reinstating the tariffs. Delaware’s Tom Carper observed that current U.S. solar manufacturing meets just a third of the nation’s current demands. He said the “retroactive solar tariffs on materials that are currently not available in the U.S. would directly undercut OUR OWN efforts and send the supply chain into a downward spiral.
“It’s unimaginable to me that we would be willing to make an unforced error in our commitment to protecting our planet,” Carper continued. “We shouldn’t be fighting the Biden Administration’s work to preserve the trade balance. We simply can’t afford to make a mistake that could halt solar deployment and cost us so many American jobs.”