Solar workers rally to preserve tax incentives on Capitol Hill

Hundreds of solar workers and advocates joined the Save Main Street Solar rally today on Capitol Hill to urge Congress to protect energy tax credits that support hundreds of thousands of American jobs.

The bill text released last night by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee would upend the U.S. solar and storage industry, particularly thousands of small businesses in the rooftop solar sector, since it would eliminate the residential solar tax credit at the end of the year.

Many of those businesses and industry leaders joined today’s rally to tell Congress that their businesses, jobs and energy freedom for American families are all at risk in this bill.

“West Virginia has always been known for our coal, but over the last 12 years, something incredible has been happening. Solar has been popping up in unexpected places — on churches, on schools, on steel mills,” said Dan Conant, CEO and founder of West Virginia-based Solar Holler. “We’ve been doing it in neighborhoods and hollers on both sides of the tracks. We’re building them with solar panels from Georgia, with inverters from South Carolina, with racking from our neighbors across the river in Ohio. Kicking out the knees of this industry that’s delivering cheap, abundant power is not in our interest. It’s not in West Virginia’s interest. And it’s definitely not in America’s interest.”

Speakers at the rally included solar workers, business owners and clean energy advocates from across the country. They all shared a common message: stripping away clean energy tax credits will cost jobs, immediately raise energy bills and threaten American energy independence.

“The bill will strip the ability of millions of American families to choose the energy savings, energy resilience, and energy freedom that solar and storage provide,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “You are the men and women building American energy independence — in states that primarily voted for President Trump and have long been the backbone of our country’s energy economy. The Senate must fix the bill that came out of Senate Finance in a way that recognizes the critical role solar and storage play in meeting the energy challenges of our time. If this bill passes as is, we cannot ensure an affordable, reliable, and secure energy system.”

The rally was organized to spotlight the serious consequences of the proposed rollback of energy tax credits on the entire solar industry.

News item from SEIA