WASHINGTON — The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today applauded U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), John Fetterman (D-PA), and Tina Smith (D-MN) for urging the Biden Administration to correct the Department of the Treasury’s guidance on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) program that is undercutting American clean energy manufactures and workers. The Senators are calling on the Treasury to correct an error in the current preliminary Guidance for the IRA’s Domestic Content Bonus Credit which would allow tax credits to go to solar installation companies that are buying foreign rather than domestic steel for some of their major components, against the law’s written intent. Correcting the preliminary guidance will ensure that the IRA champions American products and American workers and does not unwittingly benefit China and other countries.
In the letter to Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Danny Werfel, the Senators outlined specific concerns with the incorrect categorization of structural steel components of photovoltaic trackers, called solar torque tubes, in the “Manufactured Product Category” instead of the “Steel and Iron Category.” The technical difference is extremely important.
“Correcting this error in the Guidance will help ensure that the steel and iron in solar electricity generation projects is produced in the United States. It also ensures that the IRA does not unwittingly benefit China and other countries that have a history of dumping their excess steel capacity in the U.S. market, to the detriment of U.S. workers and industry,” the Senators wrote.
America’s largest domestic steel producers, the United Steelworkers, and organizations representing the industry and its workers released a letter earlier this year outlining serious concerns with the recent Domestic Content Bonus Credit Guidance. The Guidance, published by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), describes rules for implementing the domestic content bonus credit requirements for solar and other renewable energy electricity generation projects under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The letter was signed by Zekelman Industries, Nucor Corporation, U.S. Steel, Steel Dynamics Inc., North Star BlueScope Steel, United Steelworkers, the Committee on Pipe and Tube Imports (CPTI), and the Coalition for a Prosperous America. Read the letter here.
“Earlier this year, America’s largest domestic steel producers, the United Steelworkers, and organizations representing the industry and its workers warned that the current Guidance would significantly damage U.S. domestic steel producers and the millions of Americans workers who depend on the domestic steel industry,” said Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA. “The legislative intent of the Inflation Reduction Act was clearly to require the structural steel components of new solar projects eligible for the domestic content bonus credit requirements to be manufactured with steel and iron that are produced entirely in the United States. Fixing this error in the Guidance is consistent with the clear intent of Congress and it ensures that the Guidance does not unwittingly benefit China and other countries that have a history of using predatory, illegal trade tactics to target the U.S. steel industry.”
