The liberal billionaire and former Enron executive John Arnold has made a tidy profit selling solar energy farms in the United States in part by importing solar panels from China.
"What can be done?" Arnold asked in a tweet, referring to the increasing cost of solar energy.
"Easier measures include removing tariffs on solar panels, addressing hurdles to development of transmission, easing permitting, and adding resources to fast-track interconnection studies. But first we must acknowledge the problem rather than ignoring it." Now worth $3.3 billion, Arnold has quietly established himself as a major Democratic donor.
Arnold's company, Centaurus Renewable Energy, imported over 1,000 tons worth of solar panels in May 2016 from Shanghai Byd Co., shipping records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Shanghai Byd is the subsidiary of a Chinese company that the Commerce Department found in December had circumvented 2012 solar tariffs by shipping products to Southeast Asia for final assembly before delivery to the United States-though Centaurus's 2016 shipment came directly from China.
President Joe Biden in June 2022 imposed a two-year pause on solar import duties from Southeast Asia-which Congress tried unsuccessfully to reverse after the Commerce Department found in December that Chinese companies were using those countries as a back door to evade tariffs-but left the tariffs on China intact.
Arnold has close ties to Democratic strategist John Podesta, who now oversees the $369 billion green energy slush fund authorized by Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
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