The Made in the USA Foundation has inducted SolarWorld, the largest solar panel manufacturer in the country, into its Hall of Fame, which celebrates businesses demonstrating excellence in domestic manufacturing. SolarWorld says it was inducted for its contribution to job creation, commitment to high U.S. environmental and labor standards and leadership in fighting for fair global competition in the solar industry.
At a ceremony in Santa Monica, Calif., the foundation honored 20 companies, placing particular emphasis on producers of solar panels and energy-efficient vehicles for the promise these products hold for American energy independence.
SolarWorld, leader of the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM), won the award in the solar-panel category. CASM represents about 215 solar producers, installers and other industry employers of nearly 18,000 U.S. workers in promoting sustainable and domestic green-technology production and trade free of illegal foreign government interference.
“Pioneered in America beginning more than 120 years ago, solar manufacturing is a prize national industrial treasure,” says Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld Industries America. “It grows domestic jobs, furthers innovation through research and development and brightens U.S. prospects for energy independence.”
SolarWorld says it employs about 1,000 people at its headquarters manufacturing campus in Oregon, and more than 100 more at its commercial hub in Camarillo, Calif.
Since Oct. 19, SolarWorld says it has led CASM in backing trade cases to hold the Chinese solar industry accountable to U.S. and international trade laws for staging a systematic state-sponsored export drive to eliminate U.S. manufacturing competition. The U.S. Department of Commerce so far has twice affirmed the trade-case petitions by imposing both preliminary anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties on ballooning Chinese imports that CASM contends has caused at least 12 domestic manufacturers of crystalline silicon solar to downsize or close.
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