This is your SolarWakeup for July 29th, 2022

Message From Abby Hopper, CEO of SEIA. What a long strange trip its been (and continues to be). After dealing with WRO seizures, section 201 extensions, and the Auxin circumvention petition, my heart nearly broke two weeks ago when Senator Manchin announced he was not going to vote for any of the climate provisions in the reconciliation package. Yet after a few days of stunned disbelief and lots of personal soul searching, my team and I came up with a plan. We were not going to accept defeat. It simply was not an option; there was too much at stake for our industry, our country, and our planet. With the full support of our Board, SEIA and our member companies doubled down on our advocacy efforts.

We formed alliances with organizations such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, our companies wrote, called and visited members of Congress urging them to stay at the bargaining table, and we turned over every last leaf in an advocacy campaign to ensure that we were heard.

And now that there appears to be a deal between Senators Manchin and Schumer, we aren’t taking anything for granted. We still have to get the legislation through the full Senate and the House and to President Biden’s desk.

If we and our partners in the clean energy community are successful, this legislation will lead to significant deployment in all sectors of the solar and storage industry and it will be a significant step in our collective effort to tackle the climate crisis. 

To continue the push, we ask SolarWakeup readers to write and call your members of Congress and weigh in on social media as we fight for an American Energy Deal. Our collective work to this point has paid off for solar and storage, and now we need a final push. Join us in this fight.

Opinion

Best, Yann