House Advances Resolution to Restore Solar Panel Tariffs Targeting China

The House Ways and Means Committee had a busy Wednesday morning focused on China, starting with a vote against the Biden administration’s emergency move to shield some Chinese-made solar panels from tariffs.

“Congress must act in this instance to hold accountable bad actors in global trade, and in particular, Chinese wrongdoing,” said Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who chairs that committee.

Fox News reports the resolution could receive a vote on the House floor next week. The Epoch Times has reached out to the committee for confirmation.

A June 2022 proclamation by President Joe Biden declared an emergency over the need for more solar energy capacity. It used that emergency to waive tariffs on solar panels from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia for 24 months.

The proclamation came amid a Department of Commerce investigation into China’s actions to circumvent tariffs.

Putting that proclamation into effect, a September 2022 rule from Commerce referenced panels completed in those four countries with “parts and components manufactured in the People’s Republic of China.”

In a December 2022 preliminary finding, Commerce concluded that four companies that produce panels in China “are attempting to bypass U.S. duties by doing minor processing in one of the Southeast Asian countries before shipping to the United States.”

The resolution of disapproval, which targets Commerce’s September 2022 rule, passed the committee 26-13. The votes can be read here.

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) joined Republicans in voting in favor of the resolution. Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), and Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) didn’t vote. Kildee was missing because he was undergoing cancer surgery.

Sewell, Kildee, and Pascrel co-sponsored the resolution alongside several other Republicans and Democrats, running the gamut from Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

All other Democrats on the committee voted against the resolution.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the committee’s ranking member, said she thinks the resolution “is not the right solution at this time.”

“While the administration’s emergency order is not perfect, it is a short-term intervention that gives solar projects in the pipeline a needed bridge,” she said.

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) said the legislation “would cost American jobs.”

“The fact of the matter is, the U.S. domestic solar industry cannot at this time meet demand. Our domestic market is saturated,” he said.

Sewell defended the bill.

“At the end of the day, this resolution is about enforcement of our trade laws,” she said.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) drew attention to the scale of China’s control over the solar panel supply chain.

“I do believe in an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy that supports whatever form of energy makes sense for the community, but that doesn’t mean we should provide special treatment for unfairly traded solar panels that rely on supply chains dominated by our adversaries,” he said.

Josh Snead, trade counsel for the committee, described the one-sentence resolution in detail.

Hearing Examines Chinese Gains from IRA

China remained in focus for the committee in a subsequent hearing on Wednesday.

Experts testified regarding last year’s Schumer-Manchin bill, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It contained numerous tax credits and similar measures to incentivize renewable energy and similar technologies.

“While the wealthy and politically connected get a massive windfall from the Democrats’ taxpayer-subsidized handouts, working families, small business owners, and farmers—they’re struggling,” committee chair Smith said.

He said the Biden administration’s recent agreement on critical minerals with Japan “allows benefits to flow to foreign companies.”

Chu said the hearing was an example of Republicans “us[ing] China to distract from their own policy failures,” arguing that the IRA was doing a lot to reduce the United States’ reliance on China.

She also accused Republicans of rhetoric that “contributes to dangerous anti-Asian hate.”

Daniel Turner of Power the Future, an energy industry advocacy group, testified to China’s dominance of rare earth mining even as some domestic mining projects halted under the current administration.

“The metals and rare earths to ‘go green’ are still needed, but the jobs and the tax revenue are being outsourced rather than coming to Americans,” he said in written testimony.

Drew Horn, executive director of the rare earth supply chain company GreenMet, went into more detail regarding the threat from China.

“It is imperative [the Department of the] Treasury close loopholes that currently enable Chinese companies to move operations to U.S. soil by partnering with U.S. companies,” he said in written testimony.

He cited Ford’s decision to partner with a Chinese company, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL), to build an electric vehicle battery factory in Michigan.

Ford told The Epoch Times in February that it thinks the plant will benefit from the IRA’s advanced manufacturing tax credit.

Horn informed lawmakers that CATL and the People’s Republic of China “are essentially the same thing. There’s really no separation.”

He warned of China’s attempts “to prevent any meaningful competition in downstream rare earth element production outside of the PRC’s control,” including through online disinformation campaigns.

Horn specifically referenced Dragonbridge, a crudely executed campaign to thwart rare earth mining projects in the Anglosphere.

“The lack of secure and uninterruptible critical mineral supply chains is, in my professional opinion, the most significant national security threat that the United States and other friendly countries are facing thus far in the 21st century,” Horn testified.