[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 111 (Thursday, June 9, 2022)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 35067-35069]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-12578]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 87, No. 111 / Thursday, June 9, 2022 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 35067]]

                Proclamation 10414 of June 6, 2022

                
Declaration of Emergency and Authorization for 
                Temporary Extensions of Time and Duty-Free Importation 
                of Solar Cells and Modules From Southeast Asia

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                Electricity is an essential part of modern life that 
                powers homes, business, and industry. It is critical to 
                the function of major sectors of the economy, including 
                hospitals, schools, public transportation systems, and 
                the defense industrial base. Even isolated 
                interruptions in electric service can have catastrophic 
                health and economic consequences. A robust and reliable 
                electric power system is therefore not only a basic 
                human necessity, but is also critical to national 
                security and national defense.

                Multiple factors are threatening the ability of the 
                United States to provide sufficient electricity 
                generation to serve expected customer demand. These 
                factors include disruptions to energy markets caused by 
                Russia's invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather events 
                exacerbated by climate change. For example, in parts of 
                the country, drought conditions coupled with heatwaves 
                are simultaneously causing projected electricity supply 
                shortfalls and record electricity demand. As a result, 
                the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the North 
                American Electric Reliability Corporation have both 
                warned of near-term electricity reliability concerns in 
                their recent summer reliability assessments.

                In order to ensure electric resource adequacy, 
                utilities and grid operators must engage in advance 
                planning to build new capacity now to serve expected 
                customer demand. Solar energy is among the fastest 
                growing sources of new electric generation in the 
                United States. Utilities and grid operators are 
                increasingly relying on new solar installations to 
                ensure that there are sufficient resources on the grid 
                to maintain reliable service. Additions of solar 
                capacity and batteries were expected to account for 
                over half of new electric sector capacity in 2022 and 
                2023. The unavailability of solar cells and modules 
                jeopardizes those planned additions, which in turn 
                threatens the availability of sufficient electricity 
                generation capacity to serve expected customer demand. 
                Electricity produced through solar energy is also 
                critical to reducing our dependence on electricity 
                produced by the burning of fossil fuels, which drives 
                climate change. The Department of Defense has 
                recognized climate change as a threat to our national 
                security.

                In recent years, the vast majority of solar modules 
                installed in the United States were imported, with 
                those from Southeast Asia making up approximately 
                three-quarters of imported modules in 2020. Recently, 
                however, the United States has been unable to import 
                solar modules in sufficient quantities to ensure solar 
                capacity additions necessary to achieve our climate and 
                clean energy goals, ensure electricity grid resource 
                adequacy, and help combat rising energy prices. This 
                acute shortage of solar modules and module components 
                has abruptly put at risk near-term solar capacity 
                additions that could otherwise have the potential to 
                help ensure the sufficiency of electricity generation 
                to meet customer demand. Roughly half of the domestic 
                deploy-

[[Page 35068]]

                ment of solar modules that had been anticipated over 
                the next year is currently in jeopardy as a result of 
                insufficient supply. Across the country, solar projects 
                are being postponed or canceled.

                The Federal Government is working with the private 
                sector to promote the expansion of domestic solar 
                manufacturing capacity, including our capacity to 
                manufacture modules and other inputs in the solar 
                supply chain, but building that capacity will take 
                time. Immediate action is needed to ensure in the 
                interim that the United States has access to a 
                sufficient supply of solar modules to assist in meeting 
                our electricity generation needs.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of 
                the United States, by the authority vested in me by the 
                Constitution and the laws of the United States of 
                America, including by section 318(a) of the Tariff Act 
                of 1930, as amended, 19 U.S.C. 1318(a), do hereby 
                declare an emergency to exist with respect to the 
                threats to the availability of sufficient electricity 
                generation capacity to meet expected customer demand. 
                Pursuant to this declaration, I hereby direct as 
                follows:

                Section 1. Emergency Authority. (a) To provide 
                additional authority to the Secretary of Commerce 
                (Secretary) to respond to the emergency herein 
                declared, the authority under section 1318(a) of title 
                19, United States Code, is invoked and made available, 
                according to its terms, to the Secretary.

                    (b) To provide relief from the emergency, the 
                Secretary shall consider taking appropriate action 
                under section 1318(a) of title 19, United States Code, 
                to permit, until 24 months after the date of this 
                proclamation or until the emergency declared herein has 
                terminated, whichever occurs first, under such 
                regulations and under such conditions as the Secretary 
                may prescribe, the importation, free of the collection 
                of duties and estimated duties, if applicable, under 
                sections 1671, 1673, 1675, and 1677j of title 19, 
                United States Code, of certain solar cells and modules, 
                exported from the Kingdom of Cambodia, Malaysia, the 
                Kingdom of Thailand, and the Socialist Republic of 
                Vietnam, and that are not already subject to an 
                antidumping or countervailing duty order as of the date 
                of this proclamation, and to temporarily extend during 
                the course of the emergency the time therein prescribed 
                for the performance of any act related to such imports.
                    (c) The Secretary shall consult with the Secretary 
                of the Treasury and the Secretary of Homeland Security, 
                or their designees, before exercising, as invoked and 
                made available under this proclamation, any of the 
                authorities set forth in section 1318(a) of title 19, 
                United States Code.

                Sec. 2. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this 
                proclamation shall be construed to impair or otherwise 
                affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or 
the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget 
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

                    (b) This proclamation shall be implemented 
                consistent with applicable law and subject to the 
                availability of appropriations.
                    (c) This proclamation is not intended to, and does 
                not, create any right or benefit, substantive or 
                procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any 
                party against the United States, its departments, 
                agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or 
                agents, or any other person.

[[Page 35069]]

                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand 
                twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United 
                States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2022-12578
Filed 6-8-22; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3395-F2-P