Some Bipartisan Support for Solar Resolution in Senate; Finance Chair Noncommittal
Although President Joe Biden has threatened to veto a resolution that would retroactively collect trade remedies on some solar panels from Southeast Asia with Chinese inputs, several Democratic senators said they would vote for the resolution if it came up in the Senate. Biden had put a pause on the duties through June 2024, and announced the action before the Commerce Department made its preliminary finding that certain solar panels made in Southeast Asia should be considered of Chinese origin, and are circumventing antidumping and countervailing duties on Chinese solar cells.
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The House is expected to vote on the resolution Friday, April 28, according to an aide from the House Ways and Means Committee.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said in a hallway interview at the Capitol April 26 that he's inclined to support the resolution. "If China's going to be circumventing the international order by sending component parts through other countries, there has to be a consequence," he said. "They'll just keep doing it. They violate international law with impunity, and there has to be a consequence."
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who had paired with Casey on a letter decrying the pause in duties, said he would vote for the resolution. "I’ve fought my whole career to stand up for Ohio manufacturers and Ohio workers when they’re forced to compete with cheap, unfairly subsidized imports -- I’m not going to stop now," Brown said in a statement. "The Chinese government will do anything to undermine American manufacturing, and would like nothing more than to kill the American solar manufacturing industry before it takes off. Ohio is ready to lead in the manufacturing industries of the future -- we must not put that progress at risk. The president got this one wrong."
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is the lead sponsor of the resolution in the Senate. He tweeted, "We can't allow Communist China to take advantage of @POTUS' two-year pause on new solar import tariffs to fund its anti-American agenda. We MUST act. Glad to have @Sen_JoeManchin's [D-W.Va.] support" to pass the resolution.
If all the Senate Republicans voted for the resolution, those three Democrats would be enough to pass it, as these sorts of disapproval resolutions need only a majority, not the standard 60 votes.
A few Republicans have been publicly critical of this circumvention case, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll vote against the resolution.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis has repeatedly argued that trade remedies on imported solar panels are counterproductive (see 1708140025), and has argued against the wisdom of this case in particular (see 2205040015). Yet he told International Trade Today he will vote to restore the duties.
"It's not that I don't have a history of trying to get the right balance," Tillis said in an April 26 hallway interview at the Capitol, "but this administration's completely failed on the right balance in transition." He said he supports lowering the cost and expanding technologies that work to transition away from fossil fuels, but said he disagrees with so many of the incentives the Democrats passed and feels he has to take a stand.
"Anything that we can do to oppose the administration on anything related to renewable energy," Republicans should do that, he said, so that bipartisan conversations can be had on how to encourage the green transition. He said maybe Congress would reintroduce a pause on duties, "but in the context of a policy that works."
Still, even if there is a majority in favor of restoring the duties in both chambers, the resolution faces two major obstacles -- the Senate Finance Committee has to agree to move the resolution, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has to schedule a vote on the floor.
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was noncommittal when asked if he would host a vote on the resolution. "We'll see," he said. "I'm going to let the debate unfold."
Still, Wyden told International Trade Today: "I'm for the manufacturers. Always have been."