House Must Pass Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Bill, Senate Co-Sponsor Says
Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the co-chair of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said that in order to transition as soon as possible to renewable energy without doing so "on the backs of slave labor," the House of Representatives "must pass and the president must sign into law the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act." The Senate passed a version of this bill in July; a House version was included in the EAGLE Act, which passed out of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Merkley's co-chair, Rep Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, said he felt the Senate approach was not strong enough (see 2107290018). Merkley and McGovern are both Democrats.
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The Congressional Executive Commission on China, which was discussing China and the environment on Sept. 21, talked both about China's own goals to reduce carbon emissions and how its business practices affect other countries' ability to decarbonize their grids.
Nyrola Elima, a supply chain analyst originally from Xinjiang and now living in Sweden, noted that 45% of the world's supply of solar-grade polysilicon comes from the four biggest producers in Xinjiang, but said that the solar industry's vulnerability to selling panels that contain products made with forced labor is much broader than that, because 90 companies around the world have supply chains that include Chinese companies that have Uyghur workers. Elima said that Uyghurs who refuse to participate in labor transfers or poverty alleviation programs, as China calls them, can be put in internment camps.
Elima said China became so dominant in polysilicon -- it has 75% of world supply -- because it heavily subsidized coal power, and that made its polysilicon cheaper, since processing polysilicon requires a lot of electricity.
To avoid the risk of forced labor in production, she said, companies will have to use technologies that don't use polysilicon at all, or be sure to buy panels from manufacturers that don't use Xinjiang polysilicon. She said that the U.S. should not be the only country trying to hold the line on forced labor, and she said the U.S. should work with the European Union and other allies to harmonize strategies.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., asked Elima: "Are you saying the entire solar supply chain originating in Xinjiang is potentially tainted by forced labor?" She said yes, and that those products are sold to panel manufacturers outside China, too, including the U.S.
Ossoff noted that the Biden administration wants solar energy to provide 45% of electrical production by 2050. He asked: "Can we do that without relying on forced labor products from western China unless we build our own domestic solar manufacturing supply chain?" Elima said it doesn't require a domestic supply chain, and said that Malaysia has a good supply chain, and that the U.S. and allies should work to expand manufacturing in countries like India.