> we need innovation in the US solar panel supply chain.
Completely agree but reducing competition could backfire and create less innovation (due to less incentive to compete / innovate) than more.
> Energy independence is tantamount with security.
This only helps if you are talking non-renewable energy. A country can stop their oil shipments, they have leverage there. They can't typically take away solar panels.
Now one could say that they can take away the supply of new panels and slow US adoption of renewables. But isn't that exactly what the President is doing here? It's like saying I might be shot at some point so I might as well shoot myself in the foot now.
The United States is now a massive oil exporter, most of the news stories you read about pipelines or other new facilities involve getting this oil out of the country and selling it.
"Energy independence" is one of those buzzphrases from another era that doesn't really make sense anymore, insofar as it ever made sense. The idea that oil or electrical capacity is special and shouldn't be traded or should be traded differently than anything else because "security" is utter nonsense and has been used to justify lots of bad things.
If you actually wanted "energy independence" you'd stop allowing oil companies to export or otherwise nationalize the energy industry, which is probably not going to happen.
Completely agree but reducing competition could backfire and create less innovation (due to less incentive to compete / innovate) than more.
> Energy independence is tantamount with security.
This only helps if you are talking non-renewable energy. A country can stop their oil shipments, they have leverage there. They can't typically take away solar panels.
Now one could say that they can take away the supply of new panels and slow US adoption of renewables. But isn't that exactly what the President is doing here? It's like saying I might be shot at some point so I might as well shoot myself in the foot now.