Senator Rosen Has Led Years-Long Effort In Congress To Protect American Solar Industry Jobs In Nevada & Nationwide, Support America’s Solar Future
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, ahead of the vote in the U.S. Senate, Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) led Senators Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) in an open letter opposing a Congressional resolution that would roll back a two-year pause on retroactive tariffs on solar panels and cells, which would kill American jobs and hurt workers.
The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimates that this resolution going into effect would eliminate 30,000 American jobs, including 4,000 jobs in manufacturing. This resolution has also been opposed by a wide range of national organizations, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Laborers International Union of North America (LiUNA!), the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE), the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and the conservative National Taxpayers Union.
“Thanks to historic investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, American solar energy is in the middle of a historic boom, and demand for solar panels is only going to increase as we ramp up our transition to clean, American energy. We have an opportunity to continue building on that success and create more jobs,” wrote the senators. “By voting to pass this misguided resolution, Congress would deal a devastating blow to the American solar industry, which will kill jobs, raise energy costs, and decrease our ability to achieve clean energy independence.”
“We all agree on the need for a robust domestic solar manufacturing base that creates American manufacturing jobs and makes us competitive with China. And we have been fighting to make that happen. Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help greatly ramp up our solar manufacturing here at home,” the senators continued. “By continuing to pause these tariffs, we can allow many of the provisions already passed into law to take effect and supercharge our domestic manufacturing capabilities.”
Senator Rosen has been leading the effort to oppose retroactive solar tariffs because they threaten 30,000 good-paying jobs nationwide – including thousands in Nevada, which has the most solar jobs per capita in the nation. Last year, Senator Rosen led a bipartisan group of her colleagues in urging the Administration to quickly conclude its investigation into imported solar panels and cells. At the time, even the mere threat of new and retroactive solar tariffs was having a devastating effect on the U.S. solar industry, the clean energy economy, and efforts to combat climate change. Rosen followed up on that effort by leading the charge to secure the two-year tariff pause this resolution would overturn.
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