Lawmakers press for investigation into China's trade practices

Nearly five dozen House and Senate lawmakers want the Obama administration to look into whether China is dumping solar panels on the U.S. market just as officials were moving forward with an investigation. 

House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), along with 58 other lawmakers, sent a letter on Friday to President Obama urging an investigation into the allegations of possible unfair trade practices by China on clean-energy products.

The U.S. International Trade Commission voted Friday to continue an examination into whether China's practices are hurting the U.S. solar industry. 

The commission must later make a final determination about whether Chinese solar imports are threatening the U.S. solar industry.

"We cannot strengthen our energy security, or create jobs and economic growth, by replacing Middle East petroleum imports with unfairly traded clean energy technologies imported from China," the lawmakers wrote. 

The congressional letter comes after a coalition of U.S. solar manufacturers last month filed petitions with the Commerce Department and International Trade Commission seeking relief from illegal Chinese trade practices.

They allege that Chinese imports of crystalline silicon solar cells are being dumped into the U.S. market far below their fair value, and that Chinese solar cell and panel producers receive massive subsidies from the Chinese government, the lawmakers wrote. 

Imports of Chinese solar products have surged more than 350 percent from 2008 to 2010, and imports through August exceeded those for all of 2010, the letter said. 

In the past five years, Chinese solar panel manufacturers, which export 95 percent of the solar panels it produces, increased their share of the U.S. market from none to half, leading to thousands of job losses and forcing at least seven firms to downsize or close in the past 18 months, they wrote. 

"It is critical for American businesses and workers to be able to fairly compete in this rapidly growing sector," the lawmakers wrote.  

The global solar market has expanded more than 1,000 percent in the last 5 years and is now an $80 billion annual market, with demand rising, they said. 

Besides solar panels, the lawmakers urged U.S. officials to "devote more resources and attention to the enforcement of China’s obligations under WTO and other international agreements," including more than 80 Chinese laws that discriminate against other nations as part of a petition filed in September 2010 by U.S. Steelworkers.

"One very important way in which to assist the U.S. clean technology sector is for the administration to reinvigorate and expedite consideration of the outstanding claims in the Steelworkers’ petition," they wrote. 

"Congress and the Administration must work together to strengthen support for domestic clean energy technology manufacturing and deployment."