UPDATE: May. 25, 2023: **The House on Wednesday failed to override President Joe Biden’s veto of a resolution to end the pause on tariffs for solar panels from four Southeast Asian countries. The vote to override, 214 to 205, received less support than when the resolution initially passed the House 221 to 202, with three more Democrats voting no, and four additional abstentions. The vote “underscores just how unpopular it is to threaten American jobs and undermine energy security,” Solar Energy Industries Association President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement.**
President Joe Biden on Tuesday vetoed a House resolution to overturn a two-year moratorium he set for solar panel tariffs related to imports from four Southeast Asian countries.
The measure, which passed 221 to 202 — substantially short of a two-thirds majority required for a veto override — now returns to the House.
“America is now on track to increase domestic solar panel manufacturing capacity eight-fold by the end of my first term,” Biden said in a veto memo released by the White House. “But that production will not come online overnight.”
“Given the progress we are making on American solar, I do not intend to extend the tariff suspension at the conclusion of the 2-year period,” Biden said.
The suspension prevents any new tariffs associated with a U.S. Department of Commerce investigation into solar panel imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam with the intention of giving the solar industry more time to import components from those countries while a domestic manufacturing supply chain is built out.
The tariff pause would remain in effect through June 2024. Commerce’s final determination in the investigation is expected August 18.
Supporters of the resolution, including Senate cosponsor Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have argued that a pause on tariffs benefits China by allowing the country to continue to supply the U.S. with solar panels. The Senate version of the resolution awaits action in committee.
Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said in a news release that Biden’s veto “prevented a bill from becoming law that would have eliminated 30,000 American jobs, including 4,000 solar manufacturing jobs,” at a time when the U.S. is seeing an “avalanche” of investment in solar manufacturing.
“The Commerce Department’s solar tariff case effectively shut down the solar industry last spring, and the short-term tariff pause was strategically implemented to both allow project development to continue and create a bridge to a domestic manufacturing future,” she said.
