Even One Person’s Testimony Can Make A Difference
When a fisherman gathers in his net, any fish caught are likely to thrash about in a gasping panic once they鈥檙e brought up out of the water. In a metaphorical sense, I experienced something similar last year when my company was caught up in a large U.S. government dragnet seeking to penalize American businesses that had imported solar electric modules from China.
How did my modest Hilo-based electrical contracting and PV design firm get ensnared in this nasty and expanding trade dispute between the world鈥檚 two largest economies? To optimize my product offerings and be competitive, I wanted to offer a lower cost option to homeowners and businesses rather than see those low-overhead competitors beat me on price. And I also wanted to give some business to a friend who worked at a photovoltaic manufacturer not far from Shanghai.
In January 2012 I placed a single order with my friend worth $54,432. In early June, several weeks after the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed steep anti-dumping duties retroactively on Chinese PV modules, I received a notice from U.S. Customs and Border Proteection in Honolulu, acting on orders from Commerce, that I had a week to post a bond for more than $138,000 for that single shipment which I received in early March. If I didn鈥檛 pay by the deadline I was told that I risked having my company fall into the black hole of liquidated damages.
I scrambled to come up with an alternative to writing that big check. I spoke to lawyers. I spoke to my customs broker. I spoke to fellow PV company owners. I spoke to bright minds in Washington. I contacted my congresswoman鈥檚 office. I spoke to a sympathetic Customs supervisor in Honolulu who told me that she was carrying out these marching orders from Commerce and had no discretion in the matter. Not having sold a single PV module from that order鈥攖alk about adding insult to injury鈥擨 offered to send the whole cursed shipment back to China to get off the hook. Forget it. There was no way out of coughing up the money.
Fortunately, the game was not over after Commerce鈥檚 final decision in October to find in favor of the petitioners, German-based SolarWorld and the other anonymous American modcos which joined in the complaint against the Chinese. The U.S. International Trade Commission has appellate jurisdiction over Commerce in matters like this. I went to testify before the six ITC commissioners last October in Washington, arguing that my small company had effectively become collateral damage in a growing trade war through no fault or wrongdoing of ours. The day after the election, November 7, the ITC ratified Commerce鈥檚 imposition of tariffs on Chinese-made cells and modules. But they threw out the retroactive penalty part of the Commerce actions by a 4-2 vote. If the vote had been 3-3, Commerce鈥檚 finding of 鈥渃ritical circumstances鈥 would have been left standing and my bond money would be gone for good.
Did my testimony make a difference? Of course that鈥檚 really impossible to definitively determine. But I think it did. I was the last to speak on our side of the hearing room and tried to make my allotted five minutes as punchy and personal as possible. During the Q&A with the commissioners, one of them thanked me for coming the greatest distance to testify and asked me a couple of questions. I believe that I connected with this commissioner and he was one of the four who voted to overturn the critical circumstances finding.
More than eight months after the pain of writing that big check and three months after the ITC鈥檚 decision, I finally received the full refund. Sometimes one person speaking their truth can make a difference.
About the author: Marco Mangelsdorf has been in the renewable energy field for 35 years and is president of ProVision Solar Inc., a Hilo-based solar electric integrator that鈥檚 been designing and installing PV projects across the islands since 2000. He also teaches energy politics at UH Hilo.
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