@realDonaldTrump More than 62,000 jobs, $19 billion in investment and 10.5 GW of solar are lost due to your tariffs. In 2016 we were the fastest growing industry in the United States. If you want to fix the economy drop the tariffs on solar.

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Tariffs on imported solar cells and modules have led to the loss of more than 62,000 U.S. jobs and $19 billion in new private sector investment, according to a market impact analysis released today by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).
The analysis comes as the midterm review process for the tariffs begins at the U.S. International Trade Commission on Dec. 5, and covers tariff impacts from the beginning of the 2017 trade complaint by Suniva through the end of the tariff lifecycle in 2021.
“Solar was the first industry to be hit with this administration’s tariff policy, and now we’re feeling the impacts that we warned against two years ago,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.
“This stark data should be the predicate for removing harmful tariffs and allowing solar to fairly compete and continue creating jobs for Americans.”
In addition to its economic impact, tariffs on solar have caused 10.5 gigawatts (GW) of solar installations to be canceled, enough to power 1.8 million homes and reduce 26 million metric tons of carbon emissions.
KEY FIGURES FROM THE ANALYSIS:

*Solar tariffs are costing the U.S. more than $10.5 million per day in unrealized economic activity
*Each new job created by the tariff results in 31 additional jobs lost, 5.3 megawatts of solar deployment lost and nearly $9.5 million of lost investment

*Reduced solar deployment figures will increase emissions equivalent to 5.5 million cars or 7 coal plants
Tariffs on solar are most harshly affecting nascent solar markets including Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas. These markets won’t be able to get off the ground because tariffs make solar uncompetitive.
The Section 201 solar tariffs began at 30% in 2018, and ramped down to 25% in 2019, 20% in 2020 and 15% in 2021.
Until 2016, the solar industry was America's fastest-growing energy business, expanding by 20% each of the past four years and now employing nearly 374,000 workers.
US fossil fuel production is subsidized to the tune of $20 billion annually Researchers at Oil Change International (OCI) set out to quantify the level of US fossil fuel subsidies, OCI is only counting direct production subsidies.
This analysis leaves out indirect subsidies — things like the money the US military spends to protect oil shipping routes or the unpaid costs of health and climate impacts from burning fossil fuels.
These indirect subsidies reach the hundreds of billions, dwarfing direct subsidies — the IMF says that globally speaking, they amount to $5.3 trillion a year.
I acknowledge that it estimates of state-level subsidies are probably low, since many states don’t report the costs of tax expenditures (i.e., tax breaks and credits to industry), so data is difficult to come by.
Adding everything up: $14.7 billion in federal subsidies and $5.8 billion in state-level incentives, for a total of $20.5 billion annually in corporate welfare.
Of that total, 80 percent goes to oil and gas, 20 percent to coal. Extraction gets the most.
Notice that asterisk by remediation, which refers to the cost of cleaning up environmental messes and abandoned infrastructure left behind by fossil fuels.
Shady insurance, bonding, and liability-cap policies mean that taxpayers are probably on the hook for lots more than this in the end, but it’s difficult to quantify in advance.
There are dozens and dozens of fossil fuel production subsidies — OCI’s report has a whole appendix devoted to listing them — but here they are broken down by the biggest offenders:
Intangible drilling oil & gas deduction ($2.3 billion)
Excess of percentage over cost depletion ($1.5 billion)
Master Limited Partnerships tax exemption ($1.6 billion)
Last-in, first-out (LIFO) accounting ($1.7 billion)
Lost royalties from onshore and offshore drilling ($1.2 billion)
Low-cost leasing of coal-production in the Powder River Basin ($963 million)
(I listed six because that sixth one is the biggie for coal.)
These kinds of obscure tax loopholes and accounting tricks are not widely known or debated, partially because you have to be a tax lawyer to understand them, and partially because they are simply old.
The single biggest one, the intangible drilling deduction, has been around for over a century!
As subsidies age, they start to look less like subsidies. They start looking like fixed features of the landscape, like mountains or rivers, rather than the choices we are making. They just look like the status quo.
How does this compare to renewable energy subsidies? In terms of permanent tax expenditures, fossil fuels beat renewables by a 7-1 margin:
f you ask people in fossil fuel industries, their support staff in conservative think tanks, or fossil-state politicians, they will tell you why these fossil fuel production subsidies are necessary. It’s always been this way. They’re more than paid back by tax revenue.
Other industries get them too. (For the record: More than half the $20 billion is available to fossil fuels alone). They create jobs. They’re important for national security. Tax expenditures aren’t subsidies at all, if you think about it. Etc.
In the 2015-2016 election cycle, oil, gas, and coal companies spent $354 million in campaign contributions and lobbying and received $29.4 billion in federal subsidies in total over those same years — an 8,200% return on investment.
The solution to transitioning to a clean energy economy on a swift economical path is to remove all tax subsidies on energy and let the free market choose.
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