Meanwhile, a new US trade group was formed this week, representing buyers and installers of solar energy systems. It argues that any new Commerce Department restrictions on Chinese solar panels would slow the adoption of clean energy technology in the United States and could cost thousands of jobs for Americans.
Solar power is a politically fraught issue in Washington, in part because of the bankruptcy this summer of a solar panel maker, Solyndra, after it had received more than $500 million in federal loan guarantees.
By tying together complex issues such as manufacturing policy, job creation, and climate change, the solar panel dispute is emerging as the most politically charged trade case in years, potentially rivaling Detroit’s legal filing against Japanese automakers under a trade statute in 1980.
The solar panel case “is one of those once-in-a-generation cases,’’ said Alan Wolff, a deputy US trade representative in the Carter administration who is now the chairman of the international trade practice in the Washington office of the Dewey & LeBoeuf law firm. Seven US manufacturers filed a legal petition Oct. 19 seeking the Commerce Department investigation and asking that tariffs of more than 100 percent be imposed on solar panels from China. The filing accused the Chinese industry of using billions of dollars in government subsidies to help gain sales in the US market, and dumping panels at low prices.
Under US trade laws, yesterday was the deadline for the department either to begin a formal inquiry - unless it judged the case to be groundless - or find that few companies manufacturing panels in the United States actually supported it.
Whatever action the US government might take, it could prove too late to save the US solar panel industry. China, whose government has been a big promoter of green energy firms, already accounts for three-fifths of global solar panel production.
