U.S. Solar Panel Makers Say China Violated Trade Rules

KEITH BRADSHER

The New York Times

October 20, 2011 ET

Sev­en American makers of solar pan­els filed a broad trade case in Wash­ington against the Ch­inese solar indus­try on Wednesday, accus­ing it of us­ing billions of dollars in govern­ment sub­si­dies to help gain sales in the American mar­ket.
The compa­nies also accused China of dump­ing solar pan­els in the United States for less than it costs to manufac­ture and ship them.
The trade case, filed at the Commerce De­part­ment, seeks tariffs of more than 100 per­cent of the wholesale price of solar pan­els from China, which shipped $1.6 billion of the pan­els to the United States in the first eight months of this year.
            

The fil­ing, which the Commerce De­part­ment must review under fed­eral rules, is certain to be con­tro­ver­sial. For one thing, if successful, it       

would drive up the price of solar energy in the name of trying to breathe life into a flagging American indus­try. High costs have already           

kept solar power from becom­ing more than a niche energy source in the United States.

The case also co­incides with crit­icism by Con­gres­sion­al Re­publicans of the Obama admin­istration’s efforts to support American clean energy compa­nies. Re­publicans argue that fed­eral loan guar­antees of more than a half-billion dollars to the now-bankrupt solar compa­ny Solyndra show the folly of the admin­istration’s efforts to guide indus­trial pol­icy in that field.
The fil­ing might also add fu­el to the anti-China senti­ments that are running high in some Wash­ington corridors and have started to seep into the pres­idential campaign.
Ch­inese commerce of­ficials had no im­me­diate com­ment about Wednesday’s solar pan­el fil­ing, but have vehe­mently opposed such trade cases. A Ch­inese solar compa­ny man­ag­er