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).
As the partial government shutdown spans its 18th day, furloughed federal workers like Sam Shirazi who have been placed on unpaid leave are struggling with both an immediate financial reality and a more amorphous sense of uncertainty. "We don't know when it's going to end, and it doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon," Shirazi told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Tuesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2018.
When freshman Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea to Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes" Sunday that the very wealthy pay a marginal tax rate as high as 70 percent, it got pundits and politicians all worked up. What exactly was the newly-elected, self-proclaimed radical proposing?
The head of security for Huawei, the embattled Chinese tech giant that has been accused of working as a front for Chinese intelligence services, told Cheddar's Hope King on Monday that "no government has ever asked us to spy" and that those accusations were part of a "drumbeat of anti-Huawei criticism."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Jan. 7, 2019.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
For the vast majority of Americans, the partial shutdown of the federal government is felt in small ways. For Native Americans, a prolonged shutdown could mean life or death. Aaron Payment, chairman of the Sault Ste. Marie tribe, told Cheddar that he's focused on one date: Jan. 15. That's when the tribe's next drawdown of federal funds is scheduled.
Markets soared on Friday ー the Dow Jones Industrial Average leading gaining more than 670 points ーfollowing comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on monetary policy and reports that the jobs market is not slowing.
New York is getting into a crypto state of mind with plans to create the nation's first Crypto Task Force. "New York State is the financial capital of the world, and we must have the proper regulations and proper balance to be able to figure out how to regulate in this space," N.Y. Assemblyman Clyde Vanel told Cheddar.
Rep. Harley Rouda, the newly elected Democrat from California's 48th district, doesn't want to waste any time getting legislation to the floor that will stimulate wage growth, which showed better-than-expected strength in Friday's blowout jobs report but remains a concern for economists.
