The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Feb. 4 that includes billions of dollars for the domestic manufacturing of solar energy components and electric grid equipment and attempts to ease renewable energy development in federal areas.

The bill — titled the America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology and Economic Strength Act of 2022, or the America COMPETES Act — is aimed at spurring production of American-made semiconductors and helping the U.S. compete against China on the industrial and technology innovation fronts.

The nearly 3,000-page bill authorizes $600 million annually for fiscal years 2022 through 2026, or $3 billion in total, to support the construction of new U.S. solar component manufacturing facilities and to retrofit or expand existing domestic solar manufacturing plants.

The America COMPETES Act also seeks $375 million across fiscal years 2022-2026 to create a strategic transformer reserve and facilitate U.S. production, testing and monitoring of critical grid equipment. Another provision would authorize a National Academies study on the effects of deep seabed mining, which can extract minerals and rare earth elements needed in energy and communications technology.

Furthermore, the bill would reauthorize and expand the U.S. Energy Department's Office of Science, "advancing technology to combat the climate crisis," the White House said in a statement supporting the legislation.

Clean energy boosters applauded the America COMPETES Act.

"These investments will improve our competitiveness in the rapidly growing global solar market and create thousands of good-paying jobs right here in the United States," American Council on Renewable Energy President and CEO Gregory Wetstone said in a statement.

But GOP leaders have blasted the legislation. House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., compared the bill's proposed solar spending to the DOE's decision to award a $535 million loan guarantee to troubled solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. before the company filed for bankruptcy.

"A new grant and loan guarantee program at the Department of Energy ignores the mistakes of the past and instead doubles down on the failures that led to the Solyndra fiasco," McMorris Rodgers said. In addition, the bill "doesn't prevent these taxpayer funds from being used to purchase materials and parts from China, who remains dominant in the critical minerals and materials needed for renewable technologies," the Republican lawmaker said.

GOP House members have also criticized the legislation's inclusion of $8 billion for the United Nations' Green Climate Fund, with several GOP House members unsuccessfully offering amendments to strike that provision from the bill.

Amendments

Lawmakers adopted several energy-focused amendments to the America COMPETES Act ahead of House passage.

One amendment attached the entire text of the Public Land Renewable Energy Development Act to the broader bill. The public lands bill seeks to ease renewable energy development on federal lands and waters and update revenue sharing with states and counties on these projects.

The House also passed an amendment that would restore the U.S. Interior Department's authority to hold offshore wind lease sales in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Other measures were also adopted to authorize $240 million in economic assistance for communities reliant on the energy and industrial sectors, provide incentives for natural gas distribution companies to improve their systems, and codify the Biden administration's goal to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030.

Looking ahead

The America COMPETES Act now heads to the Senate, which passed its own technology innovation legislation in 2021 and will work with the House to iron out differences between their respective bills.

"I look forward to a bicameral conference process that builds on the broad bipartisan support of the Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Feb. 4.

Despite support from clean energy advocates, the America COMPETES Act would not pack the same punch as parts of the proposed Build Back Better Act aimed at supporting domestic clean energy manufacturing.

The House-passed Build Back Better Act contained about $320 billion in clean energy tax credits over a 10-year period. That total included over $12.5 billion worth of advanced manufacturing investment and production tax credits and $7.6 billion to extend a separate advanced energy project credit, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

But after passing the House in November 2021, the Build Back Better Act has stalled in the U.S. Senate amid opposition from Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.