Biden Declares Emergency Over Threat of Power-Generating Shortages

The declaration of the emergency follows Biden's decision to use war-time laws to boost the domestic production of solar panels and other types of green energy generation. He explained the use of the law by the need to walk away from oil and gas and reduce the US' dependency on supplies from "hostile" countries.

US President Joe Biden has declared an emergency in the country over the threats to the availability of "sufficient electricity generation capacity", granting emergency authority to the secretary of commerce to deal with the problem.

Biden suggested that Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo combat the threat of power shortages by granting duty waivers on solar cell and module imports from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The waiver will last for two years or until the emergency is lifted, whichever happens first.

The president explained that around three-quarters of all installed solar modules in the US in 2020 came from the Southeast Asian countries. He, however, promised that the White House is already negotiating with domestic companies to prompt them to boost domestic production.

POTUS blamed the Russian special military operation in Ukraine as one of the factors contributing to the emergency, claiming that it disrupted global energy markets. He, however, made no assessments regarding the impact of the recently imposed ban on imports of energy resources from Russia on the shortages.

Biden further claimed that climate change and "extreme weather events" presumably created by it also contributed to the energy crisis in the US, as such events occasionally put stress on US power grids due to increased electricity demand.

The president proposed dealing with the threat of insufficient energy generation only by installing additional solar panels, calling it one of the "fastest-growing sources of new electric generation". He stated that around half of the additions to power generation capacity in 2022 and 2023 were due to be solar panels, but claimed that these plans were thwarted by the lack of available solar modules.

He dismissed the idea of resolving the issue by extending the use of fossil fuels, citing the need to reduce the impact on the climate and stressing that the Pentagon recently recognised climate change as a threat to US national security.