President Donald Trump’s attempt to create U.S. jobs by taxing solar panel imports could backfire.
That’s according to the CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, who says it’s domestic workers that will feel the pain.
“We have been the fastest growing form of new energy...and this is putting the brakes on that crazy growth,” Abigail Ross Hopper told Cheddar in an interview. “These are not people who are looking for what nationality the company they work for is. They just want to feed their families and pay their mortgages. And those are the people whose jobs are at risk.”
Earlier this week President Trump signed a law that would impose a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panel and sells, a move the administration says will encourage domestic manufacturing.
But the SEIA says the vast majority of the 260,000 Americans employed in the industry work in peripheral industries like installation. Ross Hopper says the bill will result in 23,000 layoffs this year and delay or cancel billions of dollars of investment in the sector.
She also says it might dissuade U.S. consumers from going green.
“Most [businesses and consumers] want to choose solar because it saves them money,” she said. “This decision changes that calculus.”
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/solar-power-in-america).
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined Cheddar to discuss the growing calls from some Democrats to have President Biden eliminate up to $50,000 in student loan debt per borrower.
President Joe Biden says he will withdraw the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end America's longest war.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif. 15th District)
Officer Kim Potter and Police Chief Tim Gannon both resigned two days after the death of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center.
Japan’s government has decided to start releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years.
President Joe Biden and congressional leaders will pay their respects to Evans, who was struck by a car and killed while he manned a barricade near the Senate side of the building.
The U.S. government’s budget deficit surged to an all-time high of $1.7 trillion for the first six months of this budget year.
Will Smith and director Antoine Fuqua have pulled production of their runaway slave drama “Emancipation” from Georgia over the state’s recently enacted law restricting voting access.
The chairman of the Federal Reserve says the U.S. economy is poised for an extended period of strong growth and hiring even though the coronavirus still poses some risk.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson told Cheddar he tried to stop a ban on transgender treatment for youth, as written, because of its broad language and failure to grandfather in patients already receiving hormonal treatment.
