Latest news with #SEIA
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Industry group says Trump tax bill could kill nearly 22,000 solar jobs in Florida
President Donald Trump's budget request, released on May 2, 2025, proposes slashing $21 billion in unspent funds from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law for renewable energy, electric vehicle charging infrastructure and other efforts to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions. Shown are solar panels and wind turbines. (Photo by Marga Buschbell-Steeger/Getty Images) Florida installed the second most solar power capacity in the country last year, and is predicted to become the top-ranked residential solar power state in the nation in 2028, but that growth could be severely impacted by the removal of tax credits in the major spending and tax bill which passed in the U.S. House of Representatives by a single vote last month. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) says Florida could lose potentially up to 21,800 solar and storage jobs if the current bill isn't altered before making its way to President Donald Trump's desk and into law. Among the provisions included in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act that would severely alter the solar power industry are the removal of tax credits. The bill includes a measure to eliminate the 30% residential federal solar tax credit by the end of the year. Also the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for commercial and utility-scale projects would remain intact initially but phase down to 80% of its full value by 2029, then 60% in 2030, 40% in 2031 and fully eliminated by 2032, according to 'Lost jobs in every single state are a recipe for disaster for American families, businesses, and the U.S. economy,' SEIA President and CEO Abigail Ross Hopper said in a press release. 'From Texas and California to Florida and Illinois, lawmakers will put Americans nationwide out of work if this legislation becomes law, plain and simple. Axing energy jobs means shuttered U.S. factories, cancelled local investments, and energy shortfalls nationwide. We hope that U.S. Senators won't let their constituents lose their livelihoods on their watch.' If unchanged, the removal of tax credits would also hurt efforts on climate change. The bill could increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions annually by 1 billion metric tons in a decade, according to an analysis from Princeton University researchers. Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott has been critical of the bill passed by the House, saying last week it will raise the deficit. He added that he intends to work hard throughout this summer to find more cuts in the package so that he'll be able to support it when it comes to the Senate floor. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
E&E News
2 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
Solar industry highlights red state megabill job losses
The solar industry released an analysis Tuesday showing steep potential job losses as a result of the Republican tax cut, energy and security spending bill. The study is part of an effort from the Solar Energy Industries Association and other lobby groups to convince the GOP to rethink tax credit rollbacks affecting wind and solar in particular. SEIA's research, released as senators weigh changes to the House-passed megabill, says the majority of 330,000 potential job losses would be in states won by President Donald Trump in 2024. Advertisement 'From Texas and California to Florida and Illinois, lawmakers will put Americans nationwide out of work if this legislation becomes law, plain and simple,' said SEIA CEO Abigail Ross Hopper. 'We hope that U.S. senators won't let their constituents lose their livelihoods on their watch.'
Reuters
27-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Trump's tax bill jeopardises clean power factory plans
May 27 - A rapid expansion in U.S. clean energy manufacturing capacity is being curtailed by cuts to tax credits in President Trump's House budget bill currently being thrashed out by Congress. Tax credits in Biden's 2022 Inflation Reduction Act accelerated solar, wind and battery storage deployment and spurred a flurry of new clean energy manufacturing projects to meet rising demand. The act provides tax credits to clean power developers, incentives to buy domestic content and offers 45X advanced manufacturing production tax credits to suppliers that build factories in the United States. However, Trump's House budget bill proposes to speed up the expiry of the tax credits for developers and block the 45X manufacturing tax credits from going to foreign entities of concern (FEOC). The bill was narrowly approved by the House of Representatives on May 22 but many Republican states have benefited from the tax credits and the bill may undergo significant changes in the Senate. 'If Congress does not change course, this legislation will upend an economic boom in this country that has delivered an historic American manufacturing renaissance, lower electric bills, hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and tens of billions of dollars of investments primarily to states that voted for President Trump,' Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), said in a statement. CHART: US planned power generation installs in 2025 Manufacturers have spent more than $321 billion in clean technology manufacturing since the inflation act was introduced in 2022, according to a Q1 2025 report by the Rhodium Group-MIT/CEEPR Clean Investment Monitor. A total of 2,369 new clean energy manufacturing, utility-scale clean electricity and industrial decarbonisation facilities have opened since 2022, creating nearly 13,000 jobs in Texas and 12,500 in Georgia, for example. Many manufacturers are pausing expansion plans until the final bill is approved by Congress. The proposed block on manufacturing credits for foreign entities of concern seems to apply to Chinese-owned companies and also companies 'that have a licensing agreement with or receive any material assistance from a Chinese-owned company' and this would impact a significant amount of existing and planned U.S. solar manufacturing capacity, Elissa Pierce, Research Analyst, Solar Module Technology and Markets at Wood Mackenzie, told Reuters Events. Join hundreds of senior executives across energy, industry and finance at Reuters Events Global Energy Transition 2025. For solar manufacturer Heliene, major amendments to the 45X production tax credits are the first concern, but the accelerated expiry of other tax credits would "also directly affect demand,' Heliene CEO Martin Pochtaruk told Reuters Events. Heliene and Indian partner Premier Energies plan to develop the first module manufacturing chain to use U.S.-made polysilicon, wafers and cells but the final decision is still pending, Pochtaruk said. Until the tax credit changes are finalised, 'we only have the uncertainty of the possible changes putting things on hold,' he said. Tariff pain Manufacturers have already held back investments following Trump's appointment as President, due to looming tax credit cuts and a raft of import tariff announcements. Almost $8 billion in investment and 16 new large-scale clean energy factories and other projects were cancelled, closed, or downsized in Q1 2025 'amid escalating market uncertainty and as Congress begins debate on repealing the tax credits and other incentives,' think tank E2 Clean Economy Works said in its latest market update. MAP: US clean power manufacturing facilities operational or planned President Trump has raised import tariffs to boost American manufacturing and gain leverage in international trade but volatile trade policies have deterred investors and U.S. clean energy manufacturers will likely face increased costs if the tariffs are implemented as proposed, Pierce said. There are large gaps in U.S. clean energy supply chains and developers and manufacturers want certainty over trade policy before making large investments in facilities. China dominates the global supply of solar components and imports into the United States from China and Southeast Asian countries, where many Chinese companies have relocated production, are subject to tariffs and antidumping and countervailing duties. President Trump has imposed an additional 30% tariff on imports from China as well as a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminium imports, impacting suppliers reliant on Chinese components. For exclusive insights on the energy transition, sign up to our newsletter. The inflation act led to a rapid increase in U.S. module production capacity, reaching 55 GW in May 2025, compared with just 8 GW in 2022. In comparison, the U.S. is forecast to install around 40 GW of solar capacity per year in the coming years. Upstream solar production capacity has lagged far behind module production however, making many suppliers heavily dependent on components from Asia. U.S. solar cell production capacity was just 8 GW/year in Q1 2025, according to the Rhodium Group-MIT/CEEPR Clean Investment Monitor. Financing for cell factories is usually contingent on the 45X credits, so their uncertain future 'is holding back development of these factories," said Pierce. U.S. polysilicon capacity is currently around 26 GW/year but there is minimal wafer production capacity. 'The upstream supply chain remains underdeveloped and is highly sensitive to future policy and market signals," Hannah Hess, Associate Director, Rhodium Group, told Reuters Events. The trade measures could be designed more effectively by imposing tariffs on solar panels from China while allowing the continued low-cost imports of key components such as wafers, Hess said. Other potential improvements include a phased implementation to 'give domestic manufacturers time to ramp up and investors time to respond—rather than a sudden cost spike," she said. Offshore wind hit President Trump waylaid the burgeoning U.S. offshore wind sector by pausing the review of leases and permits and ordering the review of approved projects, prompting major uncertainty for developers and manufacturers. Earlier this month, the Trump administration offered the sector some hope when the Department of Interior rescinded a stop work order on Equinor's $5 billion Empire Wind project off New York. The reversal prompted rises in the share prices of some offshore wind developers, including Orsted, the world's largest offshore wind developer, which is constructing two wind farms off the East Coast. Equinor had warned in early May that the stop-work order could mean cancelling the 810 MW project that was 30% complete. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the state was suing the federal government over its offshore wind policies. The resumption of Empire Wind should help secure the future of a tower factory developed by Equinor, Marmen and Welcon at the Port of Albany. Empire Wind will consist of 54 large offshore wind turbines of capacity 15 MW and the manufacturing facility will create up to 550 direct jobs, Welcon said. "This is the largest thing the port has ever done," Port of Albany CEO Rich Hendrick said in 2022. "We put all of our effort into offshore several years ago and this project will be as monumental as building the original port."
Epoch Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Epoch Times
China's Solar Firms Face Potential Tax Credit Freeze Under House ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
Chinese clean energy companies would be excluded from tax benefits they enjoyed under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), should the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, currently considered by the U.S. Congress, become law. The act, a budget reconciliation package aimed to implement President Donald Trump's policy agenda, was passed by the House of Representatives early Thursday by one vote. China solar importers are asking the Senate to change course in their version of the bill. The IRA, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, is often dubbed the 'Green New Deal.' It provided tax write-offs to clean energy producers and manufacturers, primarily of EV batteries, battery storage, solar, and wind. For China, the IRA was mostly a solar story. China is the world's No. 1 solar manufacturer. Its solar companies account for eight out of the top 10 globally, according to researchers at Since the law, no other country has invested more in solar projects in the United States than China. Related Stories 5/22/2025 5/22/2025 At least seven Chinese solar companies have announced more than a billion dollars in combined investments into new or existing solar projects in states across the country. Prior to the enactment of the IRA, only Chinese solar multinational Jinko Solar, one of the biggest solar companies in the world, had a factory in Jacksonville, Florida. But since 2022, Ohio, Texas, Alabama, New Mexico, and Arizona have been added to the mix. It is unclear what will become of these Chinese solar investments. None of the companies has made any pronouncements at this time. However, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a trade group that counts Chinese solar companies as members, SEIA president Abigail Ross Hopper never mentioned China, but called changes to the IRA 'willfully ignorant of the fact that deploying solar … is the only way the U.S. power grid can meet the demand of American consumers, businesses, and innovation.' Hopper later went on to say that without solar, of which China is a dominant force, the United States will see higher electricity bills and 'communities nationwide will face blackouts.' Still, amid record solar deployment over the last several years, U.S. electricity rates have gone from 12.65 cents per kilowatt hour for residential use in 2015 to 16.48 cents by 2024, What Would Change for Chinese Solar? Under the new bill, Chinese companies, the dominant force in U.S. solar under the IRA, would lose the tax credits that made it attractive for companies to invest in solar. Congress had already exempted so-called 'foreign entities of concern' from tax benefits in the CHIPS Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. Foreign entities of concern are companies from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, or companies with close ties to those governments via corporate management, board members, and investment. However, with the exception of electric vehicle battery components from China, Congress did not apply the same rules to the IRA. The House-passed bill would change all that for China. By applying foreign entity restrictions to the ' If the Senate keeps the language in this bill intact, Chinese-made solar would no longer qualify for 45Y credits beginning in 2026. Chinese solar manufacturers like Jinko in Florida and LONGi Green Energy Technology in Ohio will no longer be able to write off manufacturing costs under the 45x rule, likely by 2027. The Senate could, in theory, change these time frames before sending the Act to the president's desk. Once Trump signs the Act into law, China will no longer qualify for what has amounted to a 'double subsidy'—tax breaks from the United States, plus subsidies and other benefits given to parent companies by Beijing and provincial governments back home. Last year, political risk and business intelligence firm Horizon Advisory warned in a 'America stands at the precipice of a once in a generation opportunity to seize energy independence and the corresponding boons for security and economic development that accompany a resurgence of U.S. production,' report authors wrote. 'Those opportunities risk being wasted if a short term trade off is made to allow Chinese state-backed players to exploit U.S. industrial policy.' From NTD News
Politico
21-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
3,500 percent solar tariff divides US industry
There's a new solar tariff in town, and it's a biggie. An independent federal agency has backed imposing levies as high as 3,521 percent on China-linked solar imports from four Southeast Asian countries, writes Christa Marshall. The International Trade Commission concluded unanimously that U.S. manufacturers have been 'materially injured' by imported solar cells and panels from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The commission's finding clears the way for the Commerce Department to issue the trade penalties. The news is drawing mixed reactions from a solar industry already facing massive headwinds from the Trump administration's efforts to undermine Biden-era clean energy policies. The Solar Energy Industries Association, the industry's leading trade group, said the decision would raise costs for manufacturers and project developers that still rely on foreign parts. 'Imposing additional tariffs on cell imports at this stage risks stalling progress and undermining the very industry they are meant to support,' said Abigail Ross Hopper, SEIA's president and CEO. But several U.S. solar manufacturers, including industry leader First Solar, applauded the decision as a major win. They have long contended that China unfairly subsidizes companies in Southeast Asian countries to flood the U.S. market with cheaper solar components. 'This ruling is a step forward in addressing China's continuing efforts to undermine the U.S. manufacturing rebuilding effort,' Mike Carr with the Solar Energy Manufacturers for America Coalition told Christa. Not so fast … Still, even domestic solar manufacturers say the new tariffs may amount to diddly squat if GOP lawmakers slash Biden-era benefits for the industry in their massive budget bill. The bill would weaken or ax provisions in Democrats' 2022 climate law that benefit the solar industry, including for domestic manufacturers. 'All the trade protections in the world won't make a difference if Congress backtracks on its commitments to reshore this critical industry,' Carr said. Provisions in the climate law have helped domestic production of solar panels grow sixfold since 2023. Solar manufacturing jumped from less than $1 billion in annual investments in 2022 to nearly $6 billion last year, according to research firm Rhodium Group. The Republican megabill that moved through the House Ways and Means Committee this month could imperil 300 solar and storage facilities and cut solar power generation equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of Pennsylvania by 2023, according to a SEIA analysis. It's Wednesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@ Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: James Bikales breaks down how House Republicans' reconciliation package could undermine President Donald Trump's efforts to create a domestic supply chain for critical minerals. Power Centers Zeldin vs. Senate Democrats Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin sparred angrily with a top Senate Democrat over the cancellation of hundreds of agency grants awarded during the Biden administration, writes Sean Reilly. During the hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Zeldin and ranking member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) descended into a shouting match over the mechanics of how those cancellations were decided. The heated exchange underscores Democrats' bitterness over the Trump administration's efforts to take back billions of dollars in Biden-era grants awarded by EPA and other agencies. Offshore wind resurrection raises quid pro quo queries Trump's sudden decision Monday to lift his stop-work order on Empire Wind 1, a major New York offshore wind farm, prompted widespread speculation that the president had extracted a commitment from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to green-light a natural gas pipeline, writes Benjamin Storrow. The governor, a Democrat, insisted no such deal was made, even as her aides noted Hochul was not opposed to a new pipeline — provided it meet all the necessary permitting requirements. Wildfires rage as EU delays anti-deforestation rulesGlobal forest loss from climate-change-fueled wildfires reached a 20-year high in 2024, leading to the destruction of some of the planet's most important natural carbon sinks, writes Louise Guillot. The finding, detailed in a new report from the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland, comes as the EU delays anti-deforestation rules and unwinds other environmental protections in a bid to boost economic competitiveness. In Other News Study: Earth's major climate goal is too warm for the polar ice sheets. Pesky pests: What climate change means for summertime bugs. Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. The Interior Department said it's begun the process of evaluating a possible offshore mineral lease sale in U.S. waters off American Samoa, the first such auction in more than three decades. The Trump administration said Wednesday it is redirecting $365 million intended to expand rooftop solar and storage in Puerto Rico to the island's unreliable power grid. Environmental and Appalachian advocacy groups are demanding a full Senate hearing — and not just a vote — to question Trump's pick to lead the Mine Safety and Health Administration amid budget and staffing cuts. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
