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SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGY 

AND CLEAN ENERGY JOBS 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GREEN JOBS 

AND THE NEW ECONOMY 

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JANUARY 28, 2010 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

BETTINA POIRIER, Staff Director 

RUTH VAN MARK, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GREEN JOBS AND THE NEW ECONOMY

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont, Chairman 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

BARBARA BOXER, California (ex officio) 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma (ex officio) 
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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

JANUARY 28, 2010 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Sanders, Hon. Bernard, U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ....................... 1 

Bond, Hon. Christopher S., U.S. Senator from the State of Missouri ................. 2 

Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey ........... 7 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 8 

Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ........................ 39 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 105 

WITNESSES 

Salazar, Hon. Ken, Secretary, U.S. Department of the Interior .......................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 22 

Senator Sanders ........................................................................................ 24 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 25 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 28 

Rogan, Robert, Senior Vice President, Americas, eSolar ...................................... 40 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 43 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer ................................ 54 

Response to an additional question from Senator Sanders .......................... 54 

Morriss, Andrew P., H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business, University of Illinois College of Law; Senior Fellow, IER ....................... 55 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Inhofe ............................... 71 

Gillette, Rob, CEO, First Solar ............................................................................... 72 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 74 

Wolfe, Jeff, CEO, groSolar ...................................................................................... 81 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 83 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer ................................ 86 

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SOLAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGY 

AND CLEAN ENERGY JOBS 

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GREEN JOBS AND THE NEW ECONOMY, 

Washington, DC. 

The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer (chairman of 

the full committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Lautenberg, Sanders, 

Klobuchar, Whitehouse, Udall, Merkley, Barrasso, Bond, and Alexander. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BERNARD SANDERS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Senator SANDERS [presiding]. Good morning. We are convening 

the hearing, and I want to take this opportunity on behalf of Senator Boxer and myself to welcome all of our panelists, and especially the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. 

At about 10:30, as I understand it, there are going to be votes 

on the floor, and we thought it would be appropriate to wrap up 

the entire hearing before then rather than to keep the second panel 

for an extra hour. We didn’t think that would be fair. So we are 

going to try to move this along pretty quickly. We will start off 

with brief opening statements, then we are going to give the floor 

to our distinguished Secretary of the Interior. 

Let me begin by suggesting that this hearing and this whole 

topic that we are discussing today, the need to move to sustainable 

energy, in particular solar today, is of extraordinary importance to 

our country and in fact to the entire planet. In my view, we are 

on the cusp of an energy revolution, a revolution which ends the 

absurdity of the United States importing some $350 billion of foreign oil every single year. 

And as I think we heard last night from the President, we have 

heard from the Secretary, and we have heard from experts all over 

this country, we have the potential to move toward energy independence, to create over a period of time millions of good paying 

jobs. We have the potential to substantially cut back on greenhouse 

gas emissions and clean up our entire environment as we move toward energy efficiency and as we move toward sustainable energy. 

I have a chart—which will suddenly appear—which shows that 

fossil fuel subsidies from the Federal Government totaled nearly 
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$71 billion, $71 billion between 2002 and 2008, compared to $1.2 

billion for solar and $11 billion for other renewable energy sources. 

We have another chart—because we have talk a lot about nuclear—which suggests that nuclear plants have received subsidies 

amounting to $625,000 per megawatt, compared to new solar 

plants, which receive $186,000 a megawatt. 

If there is one point that I hope is made clear as a result of today’s hearing, solar energy is no longer a fringe idea, it is mainstream, and every single year solar energy is becoming less and 

less expensive and more and more competitive with the older energy technologies. And we as move forward—and I hope we will 

move forward very boldly in solar and other sustainable energies— 

the cost is going to go down, down, down, as it has in recent years. 

And in the midst of a major recession, what excites me very much 

is the potential of creating a significant number of jobs in these 

new technologies. 

Today the solar industry in the United States has more than 

1,000 companies, and we are going to hear from several of them 

today, and they employ more than 40,000 workers, and those numbers are going up every single year. Every megawatt of solar installed annually in the United States creates 25 jobs. Compare that 

to nuclear, where you need 50 megawatts of nuclear capacity to 

create 25 jobs, or coal, where you need more than 100 megawatts 

to create 25 jobs. 

Now my hope is that as a Nation—and the President has been 

very strong on this issue, we will understand the extraordinary potential out there. I will soon be introducing legislation calling for 

10 million solar rooftops throughout this country, and that, in a 

significant way, will take us forward in solar. 

So let me just conclude by thanking all of our witnesses. I look 

forward to an illuminating panel and illuminating discussion. 

Let me now yield, give the mic over to Senator Bond. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI 

Senator BOND. Thank you very much, Chairman Sanders. 

Welcome, Secretary Salazar and the other witnesses. 

I appreciate you, Mr. Chairman, and Chair Boxer, in holding the 

hearing on green jobs and solar panel. 

Last night, the President spoke of providing incentives for clean 

energy. I support incentives from the Government for nuclear 

power, accessing offshore energy reserves; biofuels, clean coals, and 

yes, solar power, the subject of today’s hearing. However, we must 

guard against proposals that use the promise of these jobs but actually end up killing jobs and raising energy taxes, such as capand-trade legislation or back door EPA regulations. 

American workers desperately need new jobs. U.S. unemployment rates are too high. Too many workers are suffering with no 

work or low wages. Green jobs are good, but Americans still really 

need red, white, and blue jobs. Unfortunately, most of the new good 

paying, middle class supporting manufacturing jobs in the solar industry are going overseas to countries like China and Malaysia. 

U.S. taxpayers are asking why they should subsidize big Government green jobs proposals to explode the debt, raise energy taxes, 
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and kill traditional manufacturing jobs when the good green manufacturing jobs they need will go mostly to Asia. 

First Solar of Tempe, Arizona, is testifying here today. This is a 

poster of some of their newest employees. They are very proud of 

those new employees, but they are based not in the United States, 

but at the new First Solar plant in Malaysia. First Solar just finished construction of four solar manufacturing plants, employing 

2,000 Malaysians, and have announced plans to add eight more 

production lines in Malaysia by 2011. 

Well, that is good news for Malaysia, they are good friends, but 

what is reflected here in the chart of First Solar’s manufacturing 

capacity shows that First Solar has some manufacturing in the 

U.S.—that is the blue line underneath—some in Germany, but 

most of the new solar manufacturing capacity, the red on top, is 

overseas in Malaysia. 

Now, eSolar, also testifying today, may be a U.S. company but 

it imports most of its solar components from China. eSolar uses 

panels from China, gear boxes from Shinzan, and they just signed 

a new deal to outsource manufacturing to Pen-Gly, China, as you 

see in this poster. 

Evergreen Solar, another prominent U.S. solar company that has 

taken millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, recently announced 

that it is expanding its solar manufacturing not at its Massachusetts home but instead in Wuhan, China, as shown in this. 

BP is closing their manufacturing operations in Maryland and 

moving that work to China. 

GE is shutting down its Delaware solar facility. 

An Evergreen Solar executive put it succinctly: ‘‘It’s much, much 

less expensive inherently to produce in China. All of our expansion 

will be in China.’’ 

Indeed, China is a country where they pay electrical engineers $7,000 per year; manufacturing workers a fraction. Power is subsidized, financing is subsidized, and government regulations are 

nonexistent. 

The few solar manufacturing jobs we are getting in the United 

States come at extreme expense to the taxpayer. United Solar took 

$96.9 million in taxpayer subsidies for one plant in Michigan that 

created a mere 350 jobs. Evergreen took $44 million and created 

700 jobs. That is tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies 

for only hundreds of green jobs when we lost 2 million manufacturing jobs and 7 million jobs total since the recession began. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not critical of the companies here 

today. They are doing what they do, which is find where they can 

manufacture their products the cheapest. Likewise, I am sure that 

the workers they employ in Malaysia and China are fine workers 

who will do a good job for their employers, and they will strengthen 

ties between our countries. But at a time of great economic need 

for America’s workers we need proposals that will maximize the 

creation of jobs here in America, not in Asia, when we are talking 

about Federal subsidies. 

Granted, some American workers will get jobs installing solar 

panels as we will hear today. Those are not the high end manufacturing or engineering jobs. But we cannot sit here and honestly say 

that solar power will create the high number of blue collar, good 
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paying, middle class supporting manufacturing jobs that America 

needs. Thus, green solar jobs certainly cannot justify imposing 

massive job killing and energy tax, raising cap-and-trade legislation or back door EPA climate regulations. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Bond follows:] 
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Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing. I know what an advocate you have been, and it is with 

respect and support that we gather here today, and it is good to 

see our friend, Ken Salazar, in his position. Can we call him the 

warden of the environment? We really appreciate what he has 

done. We miss him here. 

I think that Senator Bond made a very clear picture of where we 

are going with the jobs and our money, but the President last night 

I think made it clear that putting jobs out of the country cannot 

simply be rewarded by bringing cheaper products into our society, 

lowering the standard of living here as we do that. When we reduce 

incomes here, we commensurately lower standards of living. 

One of the best ways to stop global warming and to get our economy back on track would be a wind farm environment, wind farm 

economy. We can create thousands of new clean energy jobs while 

protecting our planet against health threatening temperature increases, rising sea levels, resource shortages, and declining species. 

Fossil fuels are not only dirty, but they are finite; eventually we 

are going to run out, leaving us dependent on other nations and 

with outdated technology. On the other hand, renewable energy— 

wind, solar, and geothermal power—is endless. 

Renewable technologies are clean, they will free us of our dependence on other nations, and they will create jobs. These new 

technologies need workers to build the components, install them, 

keep them up and running. These are skilled, good paying jobs that 

will last for decades to come. 

I now want us to look for a moment at what is already happening in New Jersey. New Jersey, by the way, where the solar 

panels were developed in 1954, New Jersey took an active and an 

early lead in developing clean energy technology. In fact, solar panels, as I mentioned, invented in our State more than 50 years ago, 

and forward thinking laws have helped keep New Jersey at the 

forefront of solar technology and creating clean energy jobs. 

In our State, New Jersey, for example, it requires 22.5 percent 

of electricity comes from renewable sources by 2021. Since that law 

was enacted in 2001, the number of solar installations in our State 

has grown from simply 6 to more than 4,000 since 2001, making 

us second in the Nation in solar capacity to power our homes and 

businesses. 

In July 2007, former Governor Corzine signed a law calling for 

New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels 

by the year 2020 and 80 percent below the 1990 levels by 2050. 

New Jersey was one of the first States to adopt such a law, and 

the laws span innovation across our State, innovation that has created jobs. 

The Pew Environment Group found that more than 2,000 clean 

energy companies in New Jersey employ more than 25,000 people. 

That was in 2007. Right now, Atlantic City is installing the country’s largest roof mounted solar array on top of its convention cen-
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ter. This massive project will clean up the air by reducing pollution 

and putting New Jerseyans to work. 

If States like New Jersey are acting, then the Federal Government must act, too. That is why I am proud to be an original sponsor, cosponsor of Senator Sanders’ 10 Million Solar Roofs bill. 

While the bill is a good start, what America needs is a comprehensive solution to this environmental and economic challenge. Putting 

a cap on global warming pollution is the fastest, cheapest way to 

clean up our atmosphere, reduce our dependence on oil, and create 

jobs. That is what we have been fighting for, and that is what we 

must ultimately do. 

I thank you. 

Senator SANDERS. Senator Lautenberg, thank you. 

Senator Inhofe. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, I am trying to get an earlier flight out today because 

today we are going to set the second all-time record in Oklahoma 

for cold weather. I just would tell my good friend from New Jersey, 

where is global warming when you need it? 

Chairman Sanders, let me thank you for scheduling the hearing 

today to examine whether solar energy can fuel our economic recovery. As I have stated many times, I support all of the above approach. 

Oh, let me also say welcome to my good friend, Secretary 

Salazar. You are one of the real bright places in this Administration. I always enjoy visiting with you. 

I also want to mention that while we don’t have much solar in 

Oklahoma, we are a leader in Oklahoma in wind and geothermal 

technologies. I take people all the time in my little airplane going 

out west in Oklahoma. In any one place you can see 500 of these 

generators cranking away in Oklahoma. On January 8th, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission issued two orders authorizing 

OG&E, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, to purchase electricity from two 

new wind farms currently being developed in northwest Oklahoma. 

Both are expected to be in production by year’s end, will provide 

an additional 280 megawatts to the State’s already existing 1130 

megawatts of capacity. 

I welcome all the witnesses, especially Secretary Salazar, to this 

hearing, as well as Professor Andrew Morriss. Professor Morriss 

will focus his comments on current and proposed policies to promote solar and other types of renewable energy rather than on the 

technologies themselves. 

We know that cap-and-trade and other schemes that raise energy 

prices are not the solution that America wants. We know the votes 

aren’t there also, speaking practically. But to promote clean energy 

you don’t have to hammer conventional energy sources. The notion 

that energy companies will not invest in clean technology without 

Government programs is a myth. According to the Pacific Research 

Institute, the U.S. based oil and gas companies invested an estimated $121.3 billion from 2000 to 2007 on emerging energy tech-
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nologies in the North American market, and I know there are several more partnerships under development. 

Mr. Chairman, we need an all-of-the-above energy strategy including renewables but not at the expense of other domestic 

sources. Last fall, the Congressional Research Service released a 

report which revealed that America is No. 1 in combined recoverable oil and natural gas and coal resources. No. 1. Not China. This 

is America. The largest recoverable resource on earth. CRS shows 

that if America opened access to its own resources, we could 

produce 167 billion barrels of oil. 167 billion barrels of oil. That is 

the equivalent of replacing America’s current imports from OPEC 

nations for 75 years. The report also shows that at today’s rate of 

use, America possesses a 90-year supply of recoverable natural gas. 

I have to tell you I was excited last night when the President 

said we are going to start drilling offshore. If people are serious 

about being energy independent, all we have to do is develop our 

own resources. There is not another country in the world that 

doesn’t develop its own resources. 

While I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this issue today, 

I am hopeful, Mr. Chairman, that you will begin to schedule hearings on other issues, especially those concerning infrastructure. I 

have been concerned about this committee. We have the largest jurisdiction in the Environment and Public Works Committee of any 

of the committees; we have the WRDA bill, we have the transportation and reauthorization bill, all these things that we need to be 

paying attention to. 

I should also note that we have 11 nominees pending before this 

committee. Four of those are for the TVA alone, while three more 

are for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC. It is imperative that we get these guys on the job. If the majority wants to create green jobs, let’s proceed with these nominees so that the NRC 

can effectively complete reviews of 17 applications pending before 

the agency for new reactors. The nuclear industry has already created 15,000 jobs and has yet to begin actual construction of a new 

plant, which could create 3,000 to 4,000 jobs per site. 

This is our first hearing in 2010. We know enough about climate 

change and cap-and-trade to put that aside. We know that cap-andtrade means fewer jobs and higher energy prices, so let’s focus instead on advancing issues that will put people back to work and 

adopt an all-of-the-above policy that will make us independent here 

in the United States. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Madam Chairman, Chairman Sanders, thank you for scheduling this hearing 

today to examine whether solar energy can fuel our economic recovery. As I’ve stated many times, I support an all-of-the-above energy policy, which includes using renewable resources such as solar energy to power our economy. While we don’t have 

much solar in Oklahoma, my State has been a leader in wind and geothermal technologies simply because it makes economic sense to do it there. In fact on January 

8th the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) issued two orders authorizing 

OGE to purchase electricity from two new wind farms currently being developed in 

northwestern Oklahoma. Both are expected to be in production by year’s end and 
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will provide an additional 280 megawatts to the State’s already existing 1,130 

megawatts of capacity. 

I welcome all the witnesses, including Secretary Salazar and representatives from 

the various solar energy companies as well as Professor Andrew Morriss. Professor 

Morriss will focus his comments on current and proposed policies to promote solar 

and other types of renewable energy rather than on the technologies themselves. 

We know that cap-and-trade or other schemes that raise energy prices are not the 

solutions that America wants or needs. To promote clean energy you don’t have to 

restrict or penalize other energy sources. And the notion that energy companies will 

not invest in clean energy without Government programs is a myth. According to 

the Pacific Research Institute, U.S. based oil and gas companies invested an estimated $121.3 billion from 2000 through 2007 on emerging energy technologies in 

the North American market. 

Madam Chairman, we need an all-of-the-above energy policy that includes renewables but not at the expense of other domestic resources. Last fall, the Congressional Research Service released a report on America’s combined recoverable oil, 

natural gas, and coal resources. CRS found that they are the largest recoverable resources on Earth. CRS shows that if America opened access to its own resources 

we could produce 167 billion barrels of oil, which is the equivalent of replacing 

America’s current imports from OPEC for more than 75 years. The report also 

shows that at today’s rate of use America possesses a 90-year supply of recoverable 

natural gas. To remain competitive we need access to this resource base, which will 

help fuel our economic recovery and create thousands of jobs. 

While I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this issue today, I am hopeful, 

Madam Chairman, that you will begin to schedule hearings on other issues, especially those concerning infrastructure. As I’ve said repeatedly, building highways 

and bridges can provide an immediate economic stimulus and create thousands of 

new jobs. 

This is our first hearing in 2010. We know enough about climate change and capand-trade to put them aside—we know cap-and-trade means fewer jobs and higher 

energy prices. So let’s focus instead on advancing issues that will put people back 

to work and get our economy moving again. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. 

We are very pleased to have with us our former colleague and 

Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. 

Mr. Secretary, thanks for being with us. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KEN SALAZAR, SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Sanders. And 

thank you to my good friends, Senator Inhofe and Bond and Senator Lautenberg. It is good to see you all here this morning. 

Let me say at the outset, from day 1, the President’s priority 

with respect to coming up with a comprehensive energy and climate change legislation has not changed. We believe we need to 

have that framework for the long term. We understand that there 

is still a lot of work to be done, and obviously our hope is that we 

will get to bipartisan legislation that will address these issues. Our 

impetus for getting to that kind of framework is simple and clear: 

we want to create millions of jobs here in America; we want to get 

us to energy independence as a Nation; and we want to protect our 

children and our planet from the dangers of pollution. 

Now, how we move forward and address the issue of energy is 

obviously a complex matter, and I believe, as all of you heard President Obama last night in his presentation, he spoke to the Nation 

in the State of the Union about the importance of a broad array 

in the portfolio of energy that we must address, and in that portfolio of energy one of the things that we are focused on is what we 

can do with respect to solar energy development, and it is in that 

context, Chairman Sanders, that I very much appreciate your giv-
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ing us the opportunity to put the spotlight on the potential on solar 

energy for our country. 

Let me say that as the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, I have the important responsibility to be the protector of 

America’s natural resources and America’s heritage, and I work on 

that very hard every day. As we look at how we protect America’s 

resources, part of it is development, including the development of 

our oil and gas resources and other resource that we have but also 

our opportunity to use 20 percent of the land mass that we have 

in the United States of America to develop renewable energy. And 

how we develop solar energy on the public lands really is what I 

would like to spend some time speaking with this committee this 

morning, today. 

If I may, Chairman Sanders, at this point, I would ask the Chairman and the committee consent to have Bob Abbey, the Director 

of the Bureau of Land Management, join me at the table. 

Senator SANDERS. Without objection. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Bob Abbey, by the way, is the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, and he oversees 250 million-plus acres 

of public lands where many of these facilities will be located. 

Thank you, Bob. 

Let me say that we have over the last year been working hard 

to stand up renewable energy on our public lands, and today, at 

the beginning of 2010, I can report to you that we have 128 applications for solar energy facilities on our public lands. These applications, if they were to be brought to fruition, would generate some 

77,000 megawatts of power; they would cover an area that would 

be a very significant area within our public lands. In addition to 

solar energy applications, we 95 pending geothermal energy applications; we have 24 pending wind project applications on our public 

lands. 

With respect to solar energy, we believe that there are 23 million 

acres on our public lands which are highly suitable for solar energy 

production. This last year we set aside, through an order which I 

executed, 1,000 square miles of that land for a programmatic environmental impact statement because what we want to do is we 

want to stand up these renewable energy projects in the right 

places. We don’t believe that we ought to put these renewable 

projects everywhere, and I am sure if Senator Alexander were here 

he would remind us that there are important landscapes that we 

need to protect, as well as Senator Feinstein, who has been very 

instrumental in helping guide us on this issue. 

Let me say that at this point we are moving forward with a set 

of applications which we are fast tracking for permit approval, and 

by the time that we get to December of this year, 2010, we hope 

to have permitted 13 commercial scale solar energy projects which 

will have the capacity of producing 4,500 megawatts of power by 

the time that they are built out. 

When you compare 4,500 megawatts of power in terms of just a 

generic comparison to coal, that would be the equivalent of about 

15 mid-sized coal-fired power plants. We also believe, as the President said last night, that we have a future for clean coal technology 

and are deploying significant resources in the development of clean 

coal. 
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But looking at just solar energy alone, by the end of this year, 

our hope is that we will have permitted 4,500 megawatts of solar 

energy power. 

Those projects as they are built will, in our estimation, create 

over 40,000 jobs here in America. That is 40,000 jobs in the construction of these solar energy facilities that will help us move our 

way toward energy independence, that will help us create jobs here 

at home, and that will help us deal with the dangers of pollution. 

Besides the solar energy projects which we are fast tracking in 

the States of Arizona, California, and Nevada—it is in those States 

that we accumulate the projects to the 4,500 megawatts of power— 

we also are fast tracking applications for transmission because we 

know that we must find a way of taking the energy from the place 

that it is produced to the place where it is going to be consumed. 

So we have applications for about 5,000 miles of transmission lines 

on public lands and we are fast tracking those applications as well. 

So let me just conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that we very 

much appreciate your and this committee’s putting the spotlight on 

solar energy as one item in the portfolio of renewable energies and 

other energies that we believe very strongly will be a part of this 

Nation’s future. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Salazar follows:] 
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Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and thank you for 

your very exciting work that you are doing. 

Let me begin. The last time you were before this committee I believe you mentioned that you thought that solar thermal itself, concentrated solar, could provide something like 29 percent of the electrical needs of households throughout this country. Is that something that you—can you say a word about the potential of solar 

thermal in the Southwest and its capability both in producing electricity and creating jobs? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, we do believe that the solar potential, if we can realize the full solar potential, can provide that kind 

of energy for the entire energy demand of the Nation. How much 

of that will come from concentrated solar versus other kinds of 

technologies is something that the industry can speak to. The fact 

is the projects that we are permitting on public lands now use both 

technologies, they use the concentrate solar technology as well as 

the photovoltaic technology, and there is great technology progress 

that is being made with respect to capturing the sun. 

Senator SANDERS. I hope everybody understands what the Secretary is saying. What he is saying that over a period of time we 

can produce 30 percent of the electricity that homes in America 

need from solar. What an extraordinary development that will be. 

Mr. Secretary, talk for a moment, in your judgment, about the 

future of solar. We have seen that in recent years the cost of photovoltaic panels, for example, have gone down very substantially. Do 

you see a time in the near future when the creation of solar energy 

will be competitive with the more conventional technologies? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, as I have visited the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado probably now a half-dozen times, 

I have watched how the technology is evolving there, as well as 

having visited a number of solar manufacturing places around the 

country, I think that there is great interest, and there is great capacity that is emerging to build solar products and to build them 

here in America. I think the fact that we have, just within our public land portfolio—this is not dealing with private lands in America—128 applications for major solar facilities by itself should send 

a strong and clear message that there is great interest in developing these solar energy facilities. 

And I would add, Mr. Chairman, that it is not pie-in-the-sky 

stuff. As I have traveled, as I know you have, Mr. Chairman, to different places in California, I can go to a place where I can show 

you a solar energy facility that is already generating several hundred megawatts of power. So we have the technology. What we 

need to do is have the policies in place over the long term so that 

we don’t have the mistakes of the past repeated, which are fits and 

starts with respect to our energy policy. 

Senator SANDERS. In that light, we are, with Senator Lautenberg 

and others, going to be introducing legislation which would call for 

incentives and tax credits for 10 million rooftops in this country to 

be able to have solar. What do you think about that? 

Mr. SALAZAR. I think there is a potential for solar at all levels. 

There is a potential for solar with respect to residential applications; potential for solar with respect to small commercial scale applications, as well as large utility scale applications. The ones that 
33 

we are talking about on these public lands are some of the larger 

facilities which would generate up to 350 megawatts of power. That 

is a very huge utility facility. 

But you also, as Senator Lautenberg spoke about what they have 

done in New Jersey, including at the stadium, the facilities in New 

Jersey, where you have solar energy already connected there, you 

can see how solar energy has a national application; it is not an 

application that is just suited just for the Southwest. 

Senator SANDERS. No, that is exactly right. Not only is it not just 

for the Southwest, it is going to work in New England as well. We 

have a large National Guard base in the Burlington, Vermont, 

area. They are going to be installing a whole lot of solar to try to 

make that base as energy independent as possible. We are seeing 

solar going up in schools and businesses all over the State of 

Vermont. Senator Lautenberg mentioned New Jersey as being one 

of the leaders. So I think people have to understand this is not just 

in the sun States; this is applicable, more or less, in every region 

of our country. 

Can you give us a projection, Mr. Secretary, in terms of what you 

see the potential of job creation in solar? Where do you see jobs 

going as we expand solar technology? 

Mr. SALAZAR. I think the potential is immense, and I think it is 

not at all an understatement for us to talk about hundreds and 

thousands of jobs and, in fact, millions of jobs if we can move forward with a clean energy economy, which the President is so committed to making happen. And we are making that happen, and I 

think the demonstration for us lies in these applications that are 

we processing. 

Yes, while we have more than 100 applications, there are about 

15 of those that we are fast tracking, and those ones that we are 

fast tracking are projections through the Bureau of Land Management is that they will create over 40,000 jobs, and they will be permitted, our hope is, our fervent hope is that we will have those 

projects permitted by December of this year. 

Senator SANDERS. OK, thank you. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks for your testimony. I can’t help but 

think about some music that says that the environment is in the 

best of hands, and we thank you for presenting that kind of an attitude and the kind of suggestions that you have been making all 

along since you left the fold, so to speak. It is good to see you. 

New Jersey now requires that, as I mentioned, 22.5 percent of 

its electricity must come from renewable sources by 2021. Since 

putting this requirement in place the number of solar installations 

in our State has grown from simply 6 to more than 4,000. Is that 

a national renewable standard that could develop across the country in that period of time? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Senator Lautenberg, having been a supporter of a 

national renewable portfolio standard and as the President and the 

Administration have been supporters of moving forward with a national RES, that is one mechanism in which we have seen, at the 

State levels, significant progress being made with respect to a renewable energy portfolio. It is interesting to note that perhaps the 

place that has advanced the farthest is Texas, where one of the— 
34 

I think it was the first renewable energy portfolio standard that 

was passed for that particular State. 

In my own home State of Colorado, Senator Lautenberg, our renewable energy portfolio, which was created by Citizens Initiative 

in the first place, was actually doubled because the utility companies 2 years out came back in and said that they could produce significantly more renewable energy than what had been planned in 

the Citizens Initiative. 

So there is great potential in the way that you have done in New 

Jersey to do that across the country. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Your home State of Colorado leads the 

way in Government research into clean energy with its National 

Renewable Energy Lab. Has there been any effect on the local 

economy as a result of that in terms of job creation there and in 

terms of reductions in the use of fossil fuels? 

Mr. SALAZAR. The answer is that the economic injection into Colorado is very evident and very obvious from the clean energy economy. In the last year, I have been to places like Pueblo, Colorado, 

and know about places in Brighton and others where just one wind 

energy company alone has built facilities for the manufacturing of 

wind turbines that will create thousands of jobs just from wind energy. And I have watched what has happened in what I call the 

forgotten America, the rural parts of the State of Colorado, where 

you have seen a new economy that has been created because of the 

new renewable energy installations that are going into these rural 

areas where they need an injection of additional economic wherewithal. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. We hear a lot about the cost of passing a 

global warming bill, but the report by the former chief economist 

at The World Bank found that inaction on global warming could 

cost 10 times as much as transitioning to a clean energy economy. 

How could the unchecked global warming hurt the economy, and 

what dislocation might occur with job losses in the country if we 

don’t pass a global warming bill? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Senator Lautenberg, from the point of view of the 

Department of Interior, I see the impacts of climate change and the 

warming of the climate firsthand in the places that I have responsibility to manage on behalf of the American people. I see it in 

places such as the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, where the 

temperatures there have already increased by 5 degrees from 

where they were 30 years ago. I see it in places such as the Glacier 

National Park, where our scientists have told us that the glaciers 

at Glacier National Park will be gone by the year 2020. 

And for those who worry about water, which is a particular issue 

of great importance in the West, when you look at the Colorado 

River Basin that essentially is the underpinning of the great economies of California and Nevada and Arizona and Wyoming and New 

Mexico, Colorado, the seven States, Utah, the scientists are projecting a 20 percent decline in the water availability from the Colorado River Basin. 

The consequence of that economically to each of those economies 

in those seven States would be huge. It would be huge in large part 

because of the complexity of how water is allocated along that river 

system, which I would be happy to discuss with you in further de-
35 

tail. But just the impacts with respect to water supply would be 

huge, in the billions of dollars that would be affected to the economies just in the Southwest alone. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks very much, Mr. Secretary. 

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Alexander, do you have some questions? 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you. I am sorry I missed the testimony; I was in a budget hearing. 

I wanted to explore the question of subsidies and see if I could 

get, Mr. Secretary, from you or the other panelists some guidance 

about kind of subsidies for solar power and clean energy Congress—what kind of principles we ought to use when we fashion 

these subsidies, thinking specifically about solar technology. 

My bias would be that for emerging technologies, that the subsidies should be technology neutral and temporary. But that has 

not been the case over the last several years. For example, a production tax credit was created in the early 1990s, which is often 

touted as a renewable energy tax credit, but basically it went for 

wind turbines. They were the only ones that really benefited from 

it, and it is a very generous subsidy. If you take the President’s 

goal of making 20 percent of our electricity from wind, one calculation I did was figuring that it would cost the taxpayers about $170 

billion over 10 years to subsidize that. 

Solar energy got left out of those early years of the protection tax 

credit. I remember when I first came to the Senate, it was trying 

to get into the game and I was the sponsor of an early investment 

tax credit for solar energy. And then we are considering other policies such as renewable electricity standards which basically 

amount to a subsidy by narrowly defining certain types of energy 

and not other types of energy. For example, would geothermal be 

in or out, or will new hydroelectric power be in or out? So, in effect 

by requiring certain types of energy to be bought that is a subsidy 

for that energy. And then there are certain subsidies that utilities 

give called feed-in tariffs to subsidize other energy. 

So as we think, particularly given the President’s call last night 

and our own calls for having a limited amount of extra money over 

the next 5 or 10 years and wanting to see our country have more 

clean energy, how do we make—what principles should we follow 

in making these choices? 

Mr. Secretary, I will start with you because you used to be here. 

We have an X amount of dollars we can put, say, into research and 

development to try to lower the cost of solar power, so it can be 

more competitive; or we can subsidize homeowners; or we can subsidize manufacturers. Which should we do, and how long should we 

do it? And especially what about the idea of having subsidies that 

are technology neutral so that we don’t end up encouraging one 

form of carbon free electricity production, but leaving out another? 

What advice would you have for us about that? 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Senator Alexander, and 

thank you for your leadership on these issues as well as your leadership in terms of making sure that we are protecting the landscapes of America as we move forward with renewable energy de-
36 

velopment. We very much have enjoyed our work with you on that 

front. 

Let me respond in several ways. First, I think that we ought to 

avoid the mistakes of the past, and the mistakes of the past have 

been that we have not had a legislative or regulatory framework 

with respect to renewable energy in place long enough to be able 

to get to a result. You saw the great growth, for example, that occurred with renewable energy, including solar energy, in the late 

1970s. Then it was abandoned. 

Now Germany and other countries, Spain, have essentially taken 

the lead in terms of moving forward because we haven’t been there 

with a policy that has been in place long enough to be able to allow 

these new energy forms to get to the maturation point where they 

can stand on their own. So my first and most important piece of 

advice is that we need to have a long-term policy in place. 

Senator ALEXANDER. While you are doing that, I forgot to mention in Germany there is some call to reduce or end some of the 

solar subsidies because they are in effect encouraging a high price, 

and Germans are buying Chinese solar panels, and it is not helping 

the German manufacturers. So if you could think about that in 

terms of your answer as well. 

Mr. SALAZAR. I recognize that the trade issues and the costs of 

doing business are something that have to be addressed, but I 

also—and you will hear it from some of the companies who will testify—the technology that we are developing here is now allowing 

companies to be able to produce solar panels much cheaper today 

than they were 5 or 10 years ago, and we need to continue to support those companies as they search for ways of being able to 

produce solar panels in a way that is much more cost effective 

here. 

The long-term set of incentives really are two options, or maybe 

three. One would be for us to move forward with a cap with respect 

to carbon emissions because a cap on carbon emissions at the end 

of the day will start driving the energy supply needs of this country 

to these less carbon emitting energy supplies. So that is one way 

of developing the long-term energy policy. 

The second, which we have had many debates here in the U.S. 

Senate in the past, is whether we can move forward with a national renewable energy standard. Many of the States have done 

that; I think it is now over half of the States have done that, and 

they have been effective, whether it is Texas or Colorado or New 

York, they have moved forward with very significant renewable energy standards. The fourth point I would make in response to some 

of your comments and questions, with respect to neutrality on the 

different kinds of energy supplies, I think that is a very good point 

to make, because I do believe that there are some aspects of renewable energy that have been treated differently and have been 

placed at a disparity vis-a`-vis others. 

We, for example, believe that there is significant potential with 

respect to small hydro, and that would be harnessing the power 

that we already are seeing produced except not in the form of electrical generation, through pipelines that run under the streets of 

cities and through small dams that are already out there and simply don’t have an electrical generator. 
37 

So I do think that there has to be—I think that when we look 

at the portfolio of renewable energies, I think the conversation and 

the consensus that I see here in Washington is, yes, everybody 

agrees on solar. Everybody agrees on wind in the right places with 

limitations to protect the landscapes. People will agree and may be 

a little more contentious with respect to some of the biofuels, but 

there are some other energies that are out there, including hydro, 

that I think that we need to be more neutral with respect to looking at those potential sources. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SANDERS. Senator Barrasso is here; I am going to call on 

him in a second. 

My hope is that because of the votes that are going to take place 

we can get to the second panel fairly soon. 

Senator Barrasso. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And 

with your permission, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to introduce 

my statement for the record, so to not go through all of that. 

Mr. Secretary, great to see you again. Enjoyed seeing you always. 

Welcome back to the Senate. I was encouraged by the President’s 

comments last night about nuclear energy, about oil and gas, about 

different issues, and specifically with clean coal, which is so important in Wyoming. You have spoken about creating green jobs as a 

way to rescue our economy, and I support green jobs. We have 

wind turbines going up around our State, transmission lines continue to be an issue, but I have always believed that equally important to those green jobs are the red, white, and blue jobs that continue to power this country and will continue to do that for the 

next century. 

Our Wyoming Department of Employment reports that employment in our oil and gas industry increased slightly in November, 

but we have lost thousands of jobs over the previous 14 months. 

Many families in the West, as you know, rely on oil and gas development for good paying jobs. I think you have characterized some 

of these families as kings of the world, and I have concerns about 

that. My constituents that work in the oil and gas industry are 

hard working men and women; many of them are small business 

owners or their employees. So I would encourage you to work together to find some common sense solutions that foster job growth 

and promote our energy security in not just the green jobs, but in 

the red, white, and blue jobs. 

I have concerns that the Administration’s oil and gas leasing reforms are only going to make it more difficult to get these jobs back 

on track. Governor Freudenthal, I know, was here recently to visit 

with you. He and I are of the opposite parties, but we both agree 

that the new requirements on oil and gas are burdensome, and he 

said in a letter to you that it puts a stranglehold on an already 

cumbersome process. 

So the specifics of your proposed reforms, to me, remain unseen, 

but it creates greater uncertainty for development in Wyoming. 

When do you plan to make the specifics of these reforms available 

to the public? And I don’t know if you have that ready on that yet, 

Mr. Secretary. 
38 

Mr. SALAZAR. Senator Barrasso, let me just say, first, that I very 

much appreciate the men and women who work in the oil fields, 

because they are real people whose families very much rely on oil 

and gas development. Indeed, I think when you look at the numbers, if you want to be objective about our efforts on oil and gas, 

we had a 14 percent increase in oil and gas from our public lands, 

both onshore and offshore, in 2009 over what they were in 2008. 

So I think the rhetoric that you frankly see not from the men and 

women in the oil fields, but I would say from the executives of 

some of the companies, I think is misplaced. 

But having said that, I think the important thing is that we are 

trying to move forward with energy development, both onshore and 

offshore, in the right places, and wanting to make sure that the 

landscapes, such as some of the very beautiful ones you have in 

Wyoming, are in fact protected. There is an instruction memorandum that has gone out with respect to the oil and gas reforms 

on the ground, and I am going to have Director Abbey speak to 

those instruction memorandum, if I can, for just a couple of minutes to bring you up to date on what the process is. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Director Abbey. 

Mr. ABBEY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Barrasso. We 

have forwarded our draft memorandum to our field offices for their 

comments. We have received the field’s comments this week. We 

are going through analysis of those comments. We do believe that 

there may be some minor modifications to what we have proposed 

in the draft. We do not believe that there will be any significant 

modifications required. Again, the intent of our new guidance to 

our field offices is to provide greater assurance to everyone that the 

parcels that are offered for lease are likely to be leased and ultimately developed. 

So, again, in response to your specific question, I would imagine 

that we would have our final policy ready to be disseminated within the next probably 2 weeks to 3 weeks. 

Senator BARRASSO. I don’t know if you have had a chance to read 

Governor Freudenthal’s letter; it is 5 pages, it is very detailed, and 

I think it is right on point on the issues that are affecting the jobs 

in our community and our ability to continue to aim toward energy 

security in our Nation and in Wyoming, which continues to be a 

place where there are huge energy resources, both renewable and 

nonrenewable. So I would appreciate that and would appreciate it 

if you could take a second look at that letter. 

Mr. Chairman, you had mentioned the issue of time. I see my 

time has expired. I have a number of additional questions, and 

with your permission I would like to submit those in writing for 

later response. 

Senator SANDERS. Of course. Without objection. Thank you, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Barrasso was not received at 

time of print.] 

Senator SANDERS. Senator Udall, did you want to briefly ask 

some? 

Senator UDALL. I know, Mr. Chairman, you would want to get 

to the second panel, and I do also, because both eSolar and First 
39 

Solar are very active in New Mexico, and I want to have the opportunity to question them. 

But just a brief question to Secretary Salazar. Secretary Salazar, 

you have done a marvelous job, I think, at targeted with Federal 

land where you are going to do renewable energy development, and 

your testimony includes some useful information about the number 

of applications and the scale of renewable energy projects that the 

Department of Interior is working on. When do we expect to see 

these projects reach the construction stage, and how many do we 

think we will see move forward over the next several years, and 

what is going to be the impact on jobs? As we all know the President last night spoke about clean energy jobs, and you are right in 

the forefront of that, so if you could give me a little bit of an idea 

that would be great. 

Mr. SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Senator Udall, and thank 

you for your leadership on these issues and other natural resources 

issues in New Mexico. We look forward to working with you on all 

of them. 

With respect to your question, there are over 100 applications 

that we have for major commercial scale solar utility projects on 

our public lands. We are moving forward on a fast track basis, in 

part because we want to meet the December 1st deadline under the 

American Recovery Act for these projects. There are 13 of those 

projects that we have identified and we estimate that those 13 

projects, permitted hopefully by December the 1st or before, will 

generate about 4,567 megawatts and will create over 40,000 jobs. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you very much. 

And I would yield back at this point, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SANDERS. The Chair of the full EPW Committee is here, 

Senator Boxer, who has been a long-time champion of sustainable 

energy, and she wants to make a brief statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I am so sorry; I was off the 

Hill. 

And I so appreciate your coming earlier so we could hear from 

you, Mr. Secretary. I have looked over your statement, and I listened to the President last night, and I just think it is so clear that 

to launch this economy and to lead the world we are going to have 

to be the leader here on alternative energy, clean energy. As the 

Chinese leader once told me, he said, the world is going green, and 

he said we hope you sit on your hands because we are ready to go. 

And the President is not going to sit on his hands, and I don’t 

think we are going to sit on ours either. 

I wanted to put my statement in the record, Mr. Chairman, if I 

might, and just simply say that clean energy and energy efficiency 

jobs continue to be one of the bright spots in the California economy. 

On December 9th, the Los Angeles Times reported an analysis 

released by Collaborative Economics for the Next 10 Organization 

that found green jobs increased by 5 percent while total jobs declined by 1 percent in California from January 2007 to 2008, and 

we are waiting for the latest numbers. But we know that green 
40 

jobs grew at three times the rate of the overall California economy 

between 1995 and 2008, so it is absolutely key. It is obvious you 

can’t outsource the installation of a solar roof or utility scale solar 

facility located here in the U.S., and those jobs are right here. 

So thank you very much, and we look forward in this committee 

to working with you as we move forward. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer was not received at 

time of print.] 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Senator Boxer. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. And, Mr. Abbey, thank you 

as well. 

Now we welcome our new panel, second panel. 

OK, we welcome very much our second panel. The expectation is 

still that votes will take place at about 10:40, so we are going to 

move as quickly as we can. 

We welcome Robert Rogan, who is the Senior Vice President at 

America’s eSolar; Rob Gillette is the CEO at First Solar; Andrew 

P. Morriss, who is a Professor of Law and Business at the University of Illinois College of Law; and Jeff Wolfe, who is the CEO at 

groSolar. 

Let’s begin with Mr. Rogan. And we thank you very much for 

being with us. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT ROGAN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

AMERICAS, ESOLAR 

Mr. ROGAN. Madam Chairwoman Boxer and Chairman Sanders, 

distinguished members of the Environment Public Works Committee and the Green Jobs Subcommittee, I am proud to appear before you today to address the important role a robust and growing 

solar energy industry can play in driving our economy. My name 

is Robert Rogan. I am the Senior Vice President of American Markets at eSolar. 

eSolar was founded in 2007 with the goal of creating a solar technology that could compete with fossil fuels. eSolar’s technology was 

developed in California, and today we have almost 130 employees 

in the greater Los Angeles area. We opened our first commercial 

scale fully operating power plant this past summer in Lancaster, 

California. It is a 5-megawatt sun tower facility, and it employs 

over 21 people on a full-time basis. 

eSolar technology is a different variety of solar technology than 

conventional photovoltaics. There is room for both technologies in 

the market; both have certain applications in which they do better. 

eSolar’s particular technology uses tens of thousands of tiny mirrors to concentrate sunlight at the top of a tower, much like a magnifying glass. We use this concentrated heat to boil water, produce 

high pressure steam, and then drive a conventional steam turbine 

as you would find in any traditional power plant. 

As a result of this design, the eSolar technology produces jobs in 

similar ways that the traditional power plant industry does today. 

To build one of our power plants, you need welders, you need turbine technicians, and you need power plant engineers that the fossil industry has been using. In fact, we actually have more pipe in 
41 

our facilities than an average coal plant; thus, we actually need 

more welders at our facilities. 

Because our technology is primarily made of steel and glass and 

requires no special exotic materials, we have the ability to scale up 

our business very rapidly. In the last 12 months, we have announced 3,500 megawatts of commercial contracts globally. These 

are for projects in the United States, China, and India. This is approximately the same amount of megawatts as three large nuclear 

facilities. Five hundred megawatts of these contracts are for 

projects in the United States. 

Our first project, in New Mexico with our partner NRG Energy 

is scheduled to break ground later this year. NRG has applied for 

a Department of Energy loan guarantee to support the project, and 

if the loan process is completed, the project can break ground in 

2010 and could be the first solar thermal facility built in the 

United States using Department of Energy funds. 

As I mentioned, eSolar launched its first commercial facility in 

California earlier this year. The project created more than 300 jobs 

over a year construction process and now permanently employs 21 

people. Many of the plant employees were formerly fossil-fired 

plant employees and have been working long careers at coal or natural gas facilities before coming to the eSolar facility. 

Our 92 megawatt facility in New Mexico with NRG Energy will 

generate nearly $23 million in direct economic benefits to the local 

community and State during the development, construction, and 

operation process. During construction over the period of a year, 

over 400 full-time positions will be created and 20 full-time permanent positions will be created at the facility over its 30-year lifetime. 

According to the Solar Energy Industry Association, today there 

are over 10,000 megawatts of solar facilities in the Southwest 

United States under contract, PPAs, with utilities who are waiting 

to buy the power. These projects have the potential to generate literally tens of thousands of jobs; they are good paying jobs in engineering, construction, operations, and maintenance of power plants. 

It is also important to understand that for every project that 

eSolar puts into the ground, there are ripple effects in job markets 

across the country. For our New Mexico project we will need to deliver almost 1,500 containers of materials to the site. This will provide a boost to the shipping and trucking industries across multiple 

States in the Southwest. Each of our projects flexes the supply 

chain and creates jobs as a result. 

As one example, the mirrors for our New Mexico project are manufactured in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and our vendor there estimates that he will need to hire 10 additional staff at his factory 

just to support our order for the New Mexico project. When counting the materials and processes needed to face their glass factory, 

there are 10 additional jobs that this vendor will need to support 

in Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Texas. 

The towers for our California facility were manufactured in 

North Dakota, and the boilers were made in the Midwest. This is 

how solar energy can benefit the Nation, not just the Southwest 

United States. 
42 

Like many young and growing energy industries we need stable 

Federal policy to support and ensure the success of the solar industry in the future. In particular, I would like to draw attention to 

two programs that are beneficial, the extension of the Treasury 

Grant Program and the DOE Loan Program. I am running out of 

time, but I would be happy to talk more about that during questioning. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rogan follows:] 
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50 
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Senator SANDERS. Thank you very much. 

I apologize to the panel. I have to be on the floor, and I am going 

to hand the Chair over to Senator Boxer. 

Senator BOXER [presiding]. Thank you. 

I guess, Mr. Morriss, we will call on you. We welcome you. You 

are an H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law and Business 

at the University of Illinois College of Law, a Senior Fellow, IER. 

Is that all correct? 

Mr. MORRISS. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator BOXER. Well, we welcome you, sir. 

STATEMENT OF ANDREW P. MORRISS, H. ROSS & HELEN 

WORKMAN PROFESSOR OF LAW AND BUSINESS, UNIVERSITY 

OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF LAW; SENIOR FELLOW, IER 

Mr. MORRISS. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the 

committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before your 

committee as you consider these important questions about the role 

of public investment in alternative energy sources. 

An aggressive push for public investment in alternative energy 

programs is underway in the United States and in some other 

countries. The appeal of these proposals is easy to understand because they promise both increased employment and other economic 

benefits and improvements in environmental quality. As a lawyer 

and an economist who studies regulatory programs, I cannot speak 

to the technical details of converting sunlight to electricity, but I 

can make suggestions on issues you should consider as you exercise 

oversight in determining when and where to invest public money 

in such programs. 

In my written testimony I suggest five questions about investments in alternative energy programs, the answers to which I believe will help you distinguish among potential programs seeking 

support. These questions are drawn from my research together 

with my coauthors, William Bogart, Andrew Dorchak, and Roger 

Meiners. I believe asking these questions would enable Congress to 

exercise better oversight over public investment strategies for alternative energy. As my time is limited, I will focus on two in my remarks. 

First is the question of comparing proposals based on net job 

numbers. If our goal is to help the economy recover through energy 

investments it is crucial that these investments produce a net gain 

in employment. When alternative energy investment in solar technology is successful it will likely increase employment in the solar 

energy industry, but it will also likely produce a decline in employment in the energy industries that solar energy displaces. 

To evaluate proposals in terms of job creation both Congress and 

the executive branch must focus on the net employment effect, not 

just on the jobs created. Unfortunately, relatively little of the literature supporting public investment in alternative energy addresses this point. 

In addition, the impacts of shifting energy technologies are likely 

to be significantly different in different regions. I believe Congress 

could use its oversight powers, staff resources, and the Government 

Accountability Office to improve the policy debate by creating a de-
56 

mand for standards that could be applied to evaluating proposals 

in this and other respects. 

For example, as I discuss at length in my written testimony, 

there are important questions about the appropriate methodology 

for calculating employment projections and circumstances where 

significant technological change and shifts in relative prices are occurring. 

The second is the question of how the technologies that receive 

public investment are being chosen. The green energy literature 

calls for massive shifts in power generation technologies. The danger is that we will construct a sustainable energy sector that relies 

on public subsidies to exist rather than based on success in the 

marketplace. We must avoid choosing technologies that will fail to 

develop into viable industries, which is a difficult task. Based on 

prior predictions of viability by proponents there are reasons to 

worry about this with respect to solar energy in particular, as I 

outline in my written testimony. 

Fortunately, an alternative model for spurring private sector innovation and investment in alternative energy technologies like 

solar is for Congress to provide prizes modeled on the Ansari X 

Prize for space flight. My former colleague at Case Western Reserve University Law School, Professor Jonathan Adler, has argued 

that a prize approach would resolve many of the difficulties Congress faces in choosing which technology to back. While cautioning 

that prizes are not a panacea, Adler argues that prized induce innovation in the same way the patent system does while imposing 

costs only when they produce results. 

Similarly, Thomas Kalil of the University of California at Berkeley, and a former Clinton administration official, explained in his 

2006 Brookings paper that prizes offer a means to ‘‘help blend the 

best of public purpose and the creativity, energy, and passion of 

private sector entrepreneurial teams’’ without committing the Government to choose particular recipients or strategies. Prizes, he 

said, ‘‘allow the Government to establish a goal without being prescriptive as to how that goal should be met or who is in the best 

position to meet it.’’ Since, by definition, we do not know what will 

be the successful technology that delivers a new energy source, 

prizes offer the advantage of not precluding any promising directions for innovation. 

Our energy future is a subject of vital importance to our Nation. 

Congress should have the best information available to analyze potential strategies for meeting the challenges that lie ahead. Even 

with the best information possible, however, our energy future contains many unknowns. 

In 1870, coal heated people’s homes, natural gas provided light 

and street lights, electricity had little practical application, and 

gasoline was a waste product of kerosene refining. The great energy policy debates of that era concerned whether the world would 

run short of coal. No one in 1870 would have predicted that coal 

would become an almost entirely industrial fuel in plentiful supply, 

that natural gas would be used primarily to generate electricity 

and provide residential heat, that electricity would be in widespread use in homes and industry, or that gasoline would become 

an expensive commodity. We know as little about our energy future 
57 

as our predecessors did about theirs, and so we must put a premium on strategies that can adapt to new information, new circumstances, and new ideas. 

In making its energy policy choices, Congress ought to exercise 

due diligence in reviewing both the methods and the predictions offered in support of particular technologies and strategies. I hope 

the material I provided today will assist you in making those 

choices. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. I would be 

happy to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Morriss follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you very much, Mr. Morriss. You got a lot 

into that 5 minutes. Thank you very much. 

Now we are going to call on Rob Gillette, CEO, First Solar. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ROB GILLETTE, CEO, FIRST SOLAR 

Mr. GILLETTE. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be with you today 

to talk about the opportunities that exist for clean energy and solar 

energy specifically. My name is Rob Gillette. I am the CEO of First 

Solar. First Solar is the largest manufacturer of photovoltaic solar 

modules in the world, so as a business we have grown a lot over 

the last several years. 

Between 2005 and 2009 we started with 20 megawatt of production and now have 1.1 gigawatt of production worldwide as a business. That is an increase of over 50 times in just 4 years. So a lot 

of growth for us. 1.1 gigawatt is enough electricity to power about 

160,000 homes, if you kind of do that math back; reduce 30 million 

tons of CO2 over a 25-year life of our module. So good contributions 

in general. 

We employ over 4500 people, over 1500 of them in the United 

States, and we manufacture and build product. In our business, we 

have invested about $1 billion in total in capital technology, and we 

install power and generate power in the range of between 12 cents 

and 15 cents per kilowatt. 

The critical component of our success is the technology we call 

thin film, and it was developed here in the United States. Our successes in growth really have been driven by overseas growth and 

specifically sold much of our product outside of the United States. 

This has enabled us to grow and reduce our total cost and drive 

scale in our business and drive competitiveness in solar electricity. 

It is no surprise that although we expanded our plant in Ohio 

last year most of our plants are outside of the United States, as 

we build products, build our facilities where the demand is. We are 

still a net exporter from the United States in our facility in 

Perrysburg, Ohio. 

Germany remains an excellent example of increased renewable 

energy use and creation of green energy jobs. Renewable energy 

consumption in Germany increased from 4 percent of their total demand to 15 percent as a result of renewable energy feed-in tariff 

that created growing and transparent and predictable renewable 

markets. 

The German market reports that there is roughly 280,000 jobs 

in the renewable energy sector that have been created over the last 

several years and driven by the feed-in tariff which was adopted, 

and 53 billion tons of CO2 emissions have been avoided because of 

it. So adoption of similar support programs across most European 

countries exists, and the consideration of such programs is also in 

place in both China and India. 

So our resources in the United States are abundant. We have a 

lot of sun. We have a lot of opportunity to grow our business, as 

the Secretary described earlier. About less than 1 percent of our 

energy today is provided by solar power, so we have a lot of opportunity to provide. 
73 

We have some suggestions, I think, that will help us grow the 

business, and I would like to cover a few of them. They are similar 

to my colleagues’ on the panel, but the first is extend the expiring 

Treasury Grant Program. As you know, one of the solar energy’s 

most significant constraints is to gain and have efficient access to 

capital, so our ability to fund and develop these sites is important. 

In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included 

a grant in lieu of the investment tax credit for solar generation. 

However, the grant program will expire at the end of this year just 

as it is critically needed to bring these projects to market. 

So from a business standpoint and overall, we would like to see 

that extended to the end of 2012 and allow us to get these programs executed and in place. Senator Feinstein in California has 

introduced legislation to extend and expand the grant program 

there and also help with that, so that is a definite plus. 

Second, to extend and streamline the Department of Energy 

Loan Guarantee Program. Approximately 85 percent of the power 

price received from large scale solar power plants goes to repay the 

capital invested to build the project. Even though we are the leading solar power plant developer in the United States with over 1.5 

gigawatts of projects in development, First Solar has only one 

project that can meet the deadline for this project. 

Due to the 2011 sunset date, permitting redundancy, and complexity of the program, we anticipate having to seek private sector 

funds and loans to drive the rest of the projects in our portfolio. 

So this will end up costing more for the utilities and others to buy 

the electricity generated from solar power, so we think it is critical 

that we align that with the overall policy and extend it to 2016 and 

at least 2 years going forward. 

Federal and State solar initiatives from a business standpoint 

are also going to help us as a business to grow and to help to drive 

the adoption and ease of execution in land use as was mentioned 

earlier. 

Thank you for the opportunity to present, and I am open to questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gillette follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

We will now hear from Mr. Jeff Wolfe, CEO of groSolar. 

Welcome, sir. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF WOLFE, CEO, GROSOLAR 

Mr. WOLFE. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for holding the hearing and for all of your leadership on energy issues. I am Jeff Wolfe, 

co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of groSolar. I am also the 

elected Chair of the Photovoltaic Division of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a founding Board Member of several renewable energy associations, and a registered professional engineer 

with a mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University. 

groSolar is one of the Nation’s largest residential solar installation companies. We are also the largest 100 percent U.S. owned 

distributor of solar electric systems and also an installer of large 

commercial solar systems. We were founded in 1998 in Vermont 

and now directly operate in 12 States and the District of Columbia 

and provide distribution services to most other States. 

I came here today to speak about solar energy. Solar energy is 

one of those unusual technologies that can solve a bunch of problems at once. Since I started groSolar with my wife 11 years ago 

the technology has been able to provide American-made energy, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, increase our national security, 

reduce pollution, and fight climate change. And while it is doing all 

those things it is also creating jobs—good jobs. Each megawatt of 

solar photovoltaic systems deployed annually in the U.S. creates 25 

jobs, and most of these jobs are impossible to send offshore, since 

they are on the ground and on the roof installing and selling these 

systems, and it is simply hard to install a solar system on a roof 

in this country unless you are in this country. 

While many of our solar panel manufacturers are exporting overseas the U.S. is still a net exporter of solar panels, creating more 

jobs here. As an example, while groSolar is smaller in terms of 

businesses in the United States groSolar’s overall territory includes 

direct jobs in over a third of the States represented by members of 

this committee. When added with indirect jobs, groSolar has created jobs in California, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Vermont, 

Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Idaho, Missouri, and Tennessee. Looking beyond 

groSolar, every State represented here has multiple solar energy 

companies in it. Solar is one of the renewable energy sources that 

can provide jobs and economic benefit to every State in the Union. 

It is a difficult time for small business in America. It is difficult 

to get credit, financing for projects, and working capital. But with 

the incentives put in place under the American Reinvestment and 

Recovery Act and other recent legislation we are not only retaining 

existing jobs, we and other solar companies are helping to create 

new jobs. The ARRA funding for State energy programs has injected new life into many States and created solar programs where 

little existed before. The funding for public works projects has also 

created good business opportunities. And most importantly the 

Federal Grant in lieu of the solar investment tax credit has been 

fundamental in moving solar projects forward in 2009 and now in 

2010. While we create jobs we are also securing our longer term 
82 

future. Stable energy prices are an important element of economic 

stability and solar provides long-term stable electric prices. 

But we need to do more. The 10 Million Solar Roofs bill to be introduced by Chairman Sanders would help homeowners and small 

businesses stabilize their energy costs by defraying enough of the 

cost of a solar electric or solar hot water system to allow the homeowner or business to fund the rest with cash flow similar to their 

electric bill, resulting in potential reductions in their energy costs. 

To wrap up and urge the Senate to do some more things to help 

create more jobs quickly, first and foremost, we need to have the 

investment tax credit grant extended, as my colleagues have said, 

for another 2 years, to help stabilize the industry and stabilize the 

project flow that we all need, the long-term project flow. And this 

grant extension is at no added cost to the Government in this time 

of budget troubles. 

Second, we request the tax credit for any solar installed on a residence be expanded to 50 percent of the cost of the eligible solar 

energy system. Homeowners are most in need of assistance to stabilize their monthly bills. This provides an economic benefit to a 

very broad range of working Americans, which continues to assist 

the homeowner for more than 25 years, stabilizing and reducing 

their energy bills, helping the homeowners to continue to make 

their mortgage payments. 

Third and last is to open up the ability to finance small projects 

as part of the proposed Green Energy Bank. Giving large banks the 

ability to lend has not created within them the desire to lend. 

Thus, we ask that the Government step in and set up a lending organization. Strikingly, the existing programs that the Export/Import Bank is able to provide for U.S. solar companies selling products overseas if made available for projects in the U.S. would do 

a lot to spur domestic manufacturing and domestic job creation. 

These loan programs would be provided by domestic banks in normal times, but these are not normal times. Thus, some method to 

drive lending to small business is critical. 

In summary, solar technology is ready now. I thank you for your 

time and attention to the matter. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wolfe follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

We will go in order of arrival, so we will start with Senator 

Udall. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

I very much appreciate the testimony of the entire panel here, 

in particular, Mr. Gillette and Mr. Rogan, talking about the solar 

projects that you are working on, and I realize the great impact 

that that is having in New Mexico and across the West. The solar 

power industry, I think, has tremendous potential in New Mexico 

and many, many other western States. In fact, just yesterday a 

Spanish company announced plans for a 300-megawatt plant in 

Eastern New Mexico, in Guadalupe County. So we are seeing what 

you all are testifying about here today. 

One of the things that I wanted to ask you about, and it goes 

directly to Federal policy and the policies that we put in place to 

further develop solar energy. We are kicking around in various 

committees a renewable electricity standard. The Senate and the 

House have passed bills that set a standard by 2020 of 12 percent. 

The President has actually called for a renewable electricity standard of 25 percent by 2025, and I have introduced that piece of legislation here in the Senate. 

What would be the impact on your hiring if Congress enacted a 

national renewable energy standard at one of these levels? Any of 

you that want to jump in on that. 

Mr. ROGAN. I can start. I think that the impact would be tremendous. As I stated, we have 3,500 megawatts of global contracts 

right now. Only 500 megawatts of that is in the United States. So 

because our technology is an installation and construction intensive 

process the majority of the jobs flow with where the projects are 

built and ultimately operated, and right now a national RPS would 

help get more projects developed in the United States more quickly. 

As a quick addition to that, I think that it is also important to 

continue the existing policies that are in place, allowing for the 

time for these projects to develop, as has been mentioned, the 

Treasury Grant Program, which Senators Feinstein and Merkley 

have introduced legislation on, as well as some of the stanzas on 

the DOE Loan Guarantees that are in place now but need to continue to be in place to support the market. 

Senator UDALL. Mr. Gillette or any of the others, would you like 

to—— 

Mr. GILLETTE. I would just second what my colleague just said. 

Also, the emphasis on the financing aspects of the situation, because if we can put together a good financing business transaction, 

a lot of people are willing to invest in it, that drives growth. In 

terms of jobs and our cost-down, we have managed to reduce our 

cost by half in the last 3 to 4 years, so as a business what drives 

that is scale, and what drives our scale is increasing opportunities 

installation. So it would help to drive a lot of job growth. 

Senator UDALL. Now, one of the other things that we have been 

considering specifically in this committee is limiting greenhouse 

gas pollution. Would it be positive for job creation to put that policy 

also in place? 

Please, Mr. Gillette. 
97 

Mr. WOLFE. It is our firm belief that fighting climate change, 

limiting greenhouse gas emissions actually creates one of the biggest economic opportunities that the U.S. has ever seen. In terms 

of spurring innovation, spurring research and development jobs, 

spurring engineering and high level project jobs, it is one of the 

biggest opportunities I think we have ever seen and, as Chairman 

Boxer mentioned, other countries are hoping we sit on our hands. 

I hope we don’t because it will in fact drive our economy. 

Senator UDALL. Mr. Gillette or Mr. Rogan. 

Mr. ROGAN. Generally speaking, I would agree. Every megawatt 

of eSolar power plants that are built is a lesser amount of coal or 

natural gas power plants that would have to be built, and as I said, 

in our particular case, because we use much of the same equipment 

that a coal or natural gas-fired facility would have to buy and have 

to install, much of the same infrastructure of those industries is 

used in the construction of our facilities. So, in general, yes, it 

would spur a widespread development of renewable energy. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you. I thank the panel. Apologize for having to go, but I think that you have driven home the point that if 

we put some good sound policies in place, like an RES and limiting 

greenhouse gas pollution, we can really drive the industry forward 

and create a lot of clean energy jobs here in America. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

Senator Alexander. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Thanks to the 

panel. 

Mr. Rogan, you said that your 3500 megawatts of solar power 

was equal to three nuclear plants. It would be more like one nuclear plant, wouldn’t it, because nuclear plants operate 90 percent 

of the time and solar is 35 or 40 percent? 

Mr. ROGAN. That is true, on a capacity factor basis. 

Senator ALEXANDER. In fact, in terms of actual electricity. 

Mr. ROGAN. Energy produced, yes, sir. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Mr. Morriss, if I were king, I would pick nuclear power as a winner for the future, but of course I don’t know 

the future, as you have suggested. Our energy needs have changed 

over a long time, and I am trying to keep all of this in perspective. 

We have in Tennessee two big new photovoltaic plants to make— 

I mean two big new polysilicon plants, and they each use 120 

megawatts of power, massive amounts of electricity. If they had to 

rely on solar or any other form of renewable energy for that electricity, they wouldn’t be in Tennessee, they would be somewhere 

else, because they need lots of low cost electric power. 

So as we look ahead to a time when perhaps solar power can be 

cheap enough to be a supplement to base load power or even provide some base load power, I would like to ask you what lessons 

we can learn from two things, one thing you cite and one other 

fact. One is you cite that a Spanish researcher showed that in fact 

green jobs might kill more net jobs than they create because if you 

add jobs for solar plants you might lose jobs for coal plants, for example, and that is one thing we ought to at least have in mind. 

A second is the effect of subsidies on emerging technologies. In 

Germany, according to a chief energy economist of a research insti-
98 

tute there, consumers are paying 5 billion Euros additionally per 

year to subsidize renewable energy. They basically pay consumers 

double the price of electricity if they will put solar panels on their 

houses and sell it back to the grid, as I understand it. 

Well, the effect of that is that the Germans are buying Chinese 

panels, so there are big subsidies going to Chinese solar manufacturers by German people, and that also, would it not, mean that 

the German manufacturers, because of the high prices, aren’t encouraged to lower their cost? And would it not also mean that the 

cost of electricity is high, and as a result of that, big plants like 

the polysilicon plants or aluminum plants or automobile plants or 

other plants with high electricity costs might choose to locate in 

some other country because their electricity costs are low? 

So what are the lessons from other countries about subsidies to 

solar? How long should they last? What should they be? What are 

the most effective? And what about the concern about net jobs, as 

we try to keep a clear idea about all this talk about green jobs and 

whether in fact there is a cost to all these green jobs that might 

outweigh the benefit if we are just measuring it in terms of jobs? 

Mr. MORRISS. Yes, sir. On the net jobs point, I think it is absolutely crucial that if you are focused on employment you actually 

have to look at both jobs created and jobs lost, and if we are talking about creating new energy industries, we will definitely be losing jobs in old energy industries. Now, some of those people may 

well go to work making the same kind of equipment, but we need 

to do those calculations, and those haven’t been done, and that is 

a place that I think Congress can really have an impact on the debate by getting that information out there. 

With respect to subsidies, the danger is that we create an industry that is dependent on subsidies. So Congress, again, has to be 

very careful in how it structures programs to make sure that the 

programs it does will not simply, as you pointed out in Germany, 

create an incentive to buy a piece of equipment—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. Well, how long should subsidies last? 

Mr. MORRISS. Well, I am an economist, so they shouldn’t last 

very long at all, in my professional opinion. But I think what you 

really want to do is you want to make sure that the subsidies are 

not designed to lock us in to a technology that turns out to be inferior 10 years down the road when we have done more development. 

Secretary Chu said last year that solar has to get five times better 

before it is cost competitive. So if we have to get the technology five 

times better, then I think the effort Congress puts in should be in 

funding development of improvements in the technology, not in installing inefficient technology today. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

You know, I really sometimes wonder about things. If you are a 

fan of nuclear energy, which most of the members here are, and I 

think all members believe it is going to be very important in our 

fight against carbon pollution, and it has a bright future if there 

is a price on carbon. So if you are a fan of nuclear energy, I would 

be careful about making the case that solar displaces other forms 

of energy because you say the same thing about nuclear. If there 
99 

is a lot more nuclear energy, there is going to be less coal. So let’s 

not get into that. 

The important thing is what is best for the people here. And if 

you ask about subsidies and how long subsidies ought to last, I 

don’t know when Price Anderson passed, but it has been—1957. It 

is still in place. It is a huge subsidy. So I just think, if I might finish—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. [Remarks off microphone.] 

Senator BOXER. If I might finish. No, we are going to go on the 

regular order here. So here is the point—— 

Senator ALEXANDER. But you are commenting on my questions. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, everybody has a chance. and we will 

have a second round for you. 

I want to make this point, that if you pick one area that you 

think is best—now, I may think it is clean energy; somebody else 

might say, well, clean energy is nuclear, and that is what I think 

is best. You are taking a side here on what is best. So, for me, as 

I look at where we are right now, and I see an economy that is 

struggling, and I look at the world, and I see China getting ready 

to clean our clocks on this, as we have been warned, essentially, 

by them, and frankly, if you read Thomas Friedman’s book, Hot, 

Flat and Crowded, that is their whole intent. 

When you talk, Mr. Morriss, about displacing other workers, I 

think that is a fair point, but remember we are going to export 

these technologies. Am I right? 

Mr. Wolfe, are you exporting any of the things that you do? 

Mr. WOLFE. We are exporting some of our ideas and installations. We are not a manufacturer. 

Senator BOXER. Right. 

Mr. WOLFE. We are helping to grow manufacturing here. 

Senator BOXER. But you are working with other countries. 

How about you, Mr. Gillette? 

Mr. GILLETTE. We do. We export, from a panel standpoint, approximately half the production of our Perrysburg facility. 

Senator BOXER. OK. So you are exporting—and I think it is interesting, last night, when the President said he wants to double 

our exports, everyone stood up and cheered. So I think we have to 

step back here and realize that the world is going green, and either 

America will lead this, or we will not lead this. I just feel we ought 

to approach this from the standpoint of what is best for the people 

of this country and the jobs for this country. And I know that there 

are certain factors that don’t get into play here. I mentioned Price 

Anderson Act. That is one. The fact that there are coal ash spills. 

The cost of that is enormous. 

Now, I know that there are costs of solar and wind, and I know 

there is no question about that, and geothermal, but that is fair. 

But we can’t just say, because it is old energy, that there is nothing 

else in our future. That is not the American way. We always make 

progress. 

I want to ask in terms of this New Mexico plant that you are 

building, Mr. Rogan, how many homes will you be able to power 

when that is done? 

Mr. ROGAN. When the sun is shining, it will power—sorry to be 

caught flatfooted on the math. It will be about 92,000 homes when 
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the sun is shining. When the sun is not shining, we can’t power 

anything, obviously. But on the top of—— 

Senator BOXER. In New Mexico, the sun shines how much of the 

time? 

Mr. ROGAN. Quite a bit. 

Senator BOXER. That is what I thought. 

Mr. ROGAN. The capacity factors for that plant are expected to 

be some of the better in the Nation. California, Nevada, Arizona, 

and New Mexico typically are the best places to cite solar facilities. 

But as I mentioned, just by virtue of the fact that they are being 

built in the United States, there are widespread job impacts across 

the Nation. 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Gillette, I believe the United States has the 

technological expertise and drive to lead the world in the development of clean energy industries, and that is to me what is so exciting about this. 

Mr. GILLETTE. It is exciting. 

Senator BOXER. Yes. Because you are not only producing clean 

energy, which helps our families and makes them healthier, the 

other issue is all of our importation of foreign oil and the fact that 

I am sure, Mr. Morriss, you would agree—I shouldn’t say that—I 

hope you would agree that if we have a way to get past this $1 billion a day foreign oil importation habit, that would be good for our 

society, would it not, for our country? 

Mr. MORRISS. I think it would be great if we could have domestically produced cheap energy. That would be great. 

Senator BOXER. I agree with you so much. 

What is First Solar’s experience in using U.S. workers to produce 

products that can compete against renewable energy systems made 

in other countries? 

Mr. GILLETTE. Very successful. Most all of our technology development for all of our facilities globally is done in Perrysburg, Ohio, 

and as I mentioned during testimony we have reduced the cost 

from $1.50 to $1.60 a watt to 80 cents a watt in the last 3 years, 

so all of that driven through our technology developments and capabilities here in the United States. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Senator Merkley. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Thank you all for your testimony. 

Mr. Rogan, I want to ask you a few questions about the industry 

that you are in. One is you are involved in tower technology. Are 

you also involved in trough technology? Has the technologies 

evolved, are they roughly competitive, or is the industry going to 

go one direction or the other? 

Mr. ROGAN. Well, I think right now we are seeing a mix of both 

tower and trough solar thermal technology depending upon which 

market you are participating in. Currently, in the Southwest 

United States there is a healthy mix of both tower and trough 

projects under development. Ultimately, when projects close financing and actually break ground, I think in a few years hopefully 

there will be a lot of eSolar tower plants sprinkled across the 

Southwest. But our company is based solely on tower technology, 
101 

that is the approach we took to lowering the cost of the overall system. 

Senator MERKLEY. And are the mirrors you are using, they look 

to me to be flat mirrors, or do they have a concave aspect to them? 

Mr. ROGAN. No, they are actually small flat mirrors. They are 

about the size of your average—well, I shouldn’t say average, a 

fairly large flat screen TV, about 1 square meter. 

Senator MERKLEY. And they are driven by a central computer 

program, or do they have some kind of—each mirror has its own 

tracking device? 

Mr. ROGAN. They are driven by a centralized computer system, 

and the software that we use to have the mirrors track and focus 

the sunlight is part of our core technology. 

Senator MERKLEY. One of the things in the concentrated solar 

power discussion is the storage of solar energy, in part to address 

the rhythm of the power production. Is that something that you all 

are involved in? Are you using any type of heat storage to continue 

generating until the sun goes down, if you will? 

Mr. ROGAN. Our current systems that we have under contract do 

not have storage capabilities, they just directly generate steam. 

However, we have applied for a Department of Energy research 

program to perform analysis on storage technologies. Additionally, 

we have several senior staff at eSolar who ran the solar thermal 

program at Sandia National Laboratories for the past several decades, all of whom are very familiar with storage technology and 

have encouraged us to continue looking in that direction. As a longterm solution, it is very important to have storage. 

Senator MERKLEY. And what are you using for your cooling strategy? 

Mr. ROGAN. Right now, our plans are water cooled. There is always a tradeoff between having to use water to cool plants and the 

performance of the plants. So this is always—it is an economic and 

environmental tradeoff. All of our current facilities in California 

are cited on private property that is formerly agricultural land, so 

the net impact on the water use of that property is actually going 

down as a result of us building a power plant there. In the future, 

as the technology efficiency improves I think that moving toward 

lower water impact technology is possible. 

Senator MERKLEY. There are some, are there not, that are going 

to solely—especially where water is a limited commodity, as it 

often happens to be in places where the sun shines a lot—are going 

to a dry strategy? 

Mr. ROGAN. It is possible to do so, yes, and that is again a difference between solar, thermal, and photovoltaic and why there is 

usually a mix of these technologies in certain areas. 

Senator MERKLEY. But there are concentrated solar plants that 

are using dry technology cooling as well, is my understanding. 

Mr. ROGAN. Yes, some of them are, yes. 

Senator MERKLEY. OK. 

Mr. ROGAN. They are proposed—— 

Senator MERKLEY. Which would increase the footprint of the locations that they could be placed in, if you will, if water is not a 

limiting factor. 
102 

Mr. ROGAN. Yes. By using air to cool the plants, you lower the 

efficiency of the power plant output at the exact time of day that 

you want it most, which is when it is hottest outside. So the footprint of the plant expands and the cost of the electricity generated 

by the plant goes up—— 

Senator MERKLEY. What kind of percentage factor there in terms 

of loss? 

Mr. ROGAN. It depends on which market you are in, but in the 

United States you would typically see a 10 percent reduction in efficiency of the plant and up to a 10 percent capital cost increase 

in the plant. Those combined effects can make the electricity several cents more expensive. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. Wolfe, are you familiar with Bernie Sanders’ 10 Million Solar 

Roofs bill modeled on the California bill? If you are, could you comment a bit on the impact that that might have? 

Mr. WOLFE. I am familiar with it; it is a tremendous bill. What 

it does is it helps to incentivize distributed generation, smaller 

scale solar across the entire country, which is an important element. We think that we need the very large scale solar farms in 

the Desert Southwest as well as the smaller scale solar on my rooftop, your rooftop, and warehouse and large flat roofs around the 

country. Incentivizing it helps to stabilize our transmission grid, 

which needs more help; helps to implement the smart grid; and distributes the jobs and the employment and the economic effect of 

solar nationwide. 

Senator MERKLEY. I believe it is structured around a per watt capacity rebate. 

Am I out of time? 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

Senator MERKLEY. OK. 

Senator BOXER. But I’m very impressed with your line of questioning. 

Senator MERKLEY. I will look forward to following up the conversation. Thank you very much. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Senator Klobuchar. 

The votes started about a minute ago, but we have time. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. Well, perhaps I should follow up on 

that line of questioning with the small solar, Mr. Wolfe. Do you 

want to go into a little more detail about just the advantages of 

that? Obviously, we want both, and I get concerned as well in my 

State. We have a lot of people interested in small wind and small 

solar. They argue you don’t have to have transmission lines and 

that they can—or at least as long ones, and they can do things 

right in the home bases. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? 

And is it really—when does it become cost-effective if you put a 

solar panel in when you get—what is the average of getting your 

money out of it? 

Mr. WOLFE. It very much depends upon your State. It depends 

upon the electric grids we are competing against, it depends upon 

the sunshine in the State and the installation costs, which all vary. 

In some States it makes sense, given simply the Federal tax credit 

today, with the prices we are seeing on residential solar, which is 
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a change from last year, prices have decreased by over 35 percent 

in the last year for residential solar. 

The 10 Million Solar Roofs bill is structured very similar to how 

the Million Solar Roofs in California was structured in that it is 

a per watt rebate for small systems, which declines over time. So 

as we have more and more solar, the price is expected to decline, 

which will reduce the incentives, which is unlike pretty much any 

other energy source, any traditional energy source in the U.S. 

which have had stable and long-term high incentives for many, 

many decades. So the 10 Million Solar Roofs program allows individual homeowners, small business owners to take advantage of 

solar, help to create economic benefit in many diverse areas, while 

also creating economic benefit by stabilizing power costs. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Have you heard about this issue about the 

testing of the solar panels and how there was limited places that 

they could be tested, including one in Canada? I had some manufacturers in our State that were very concerned about how long it 

took to get some new products approved. 

Mr. WOLFE. The U.S. requires certification by a NRTL, national 

research and test lab, and there are limited numbers of those labs 

that can test solar panels to the U.S. standards, which are unique 

and different than any other worldwide standard, and that time period has increased dramatically over the last 4 or 5 years and is 

a significant hurdle in bringing new products to market quickly. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Ideas on how you can fix that? 

Mr. WOLFE. Additional testing laboratories would be greatly appreciated; potentially looking at the whole testing and certification 

regime for solar equipment, which has tended to be far more burdensome and excessive than almost any other electrical device 

found in a home or a business. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I chair the Commerce Subcommittee on Export Promotion. What would be some of the things that would be 

helpful in terms of getting our—we have been importing so many 

products, whether it is wind or solar, from other places—getting 

our manufacturing going and then have us start exporting, especially in light of the weak dollar in some of the growing economic 

markets across the world? 

Mr. WOLFE. Well, I will let my colleagues speak more to that, but 

I just want to note first that we are a net export, the U.S. is a net 

exporter still of solar photovoltaic panels. We want to encourage 

more and more manufacturing, but we are already a net exporter 

of those products. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. OK. I didn’t know that. 

Mr. GILLETTE. For solar and our business, we talked about it earlier, has continued to grow the opportunities for installations in the 

United States and we are still exporting half of our capacity here 

out of our Ohio facility. So anything that we develop in new opportunities here with some support of the Government and Congress 

will help us grow scale and grow jobs and ship product as well. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. I think I will give my remaining—— 

Mr. WOLFE. I would like to add, if I could, that if you look at the 

countries that are exporting the most panels worldwide, they are 

the ones that typically have the best domestic markets. And then 

I would also add that even to China we are exporting equipment 
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that makes solar panels from the U.S. to China, so we have a net 

benefit even of Chinese production, oddly enough. 

Senator KLOBUCHAR. Very good. I am going to give my remaining 

time to Senator Whitehouse here, since we have a vote going on. 

Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Yes. I understand that the vote was just 

called a few moments ago, so I only have one quick question for 

whichever would like to answer it, more than one, if you wish. I 

would like you to put Government support for solar industry in the 

context of the development of that industry in international competition and the role of technological leadership in securing future 

economic opportunity and advantage. 

In a nutshell, get behind, fall behind versus get ahead, stay 

ahead. Is that an accurate principle, and is it something that we 

should be—in your experience, is that something that we should be 

justifying investment in this early stage technology for competitive 

reasons against foreign competition? 

Mr. ROGAN. Well, I think currently it could be argued that the 

United States is still the technology leader in most aspects of the 

solar industry. However, because countries such as Spain and Germany put in place large development incentives, they have seen explosive growth and a volume drive that is currently unparalleled. 

Recently, China and India have both taken steps in this direction. 

As a result, there is going to be a huge bloom of solar development 

in those nations. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Just to interrupt, it is in that growth and 

volume drive where the economic advantage and the jobs are really 

located. We have seen a considerable number of technologies in 

which American ingenuity invented the technology, but foreign 

countries took advantage of the development phase and actually 

put it into significant production, and the jobs associated with that 

technological invention manifested themselves to an unfortunate 

degree overseas rather than at home. 

Mr. ROGAN. And the corresponding carbon benefits of installing 

the technology. So that volume drive is what reduces pricing, and 

it is not just the pricing of the underlying technology, it is the cost 

of constructing and operating the plants as well. So more developments in the United States will drive those costs down here and 

bring down the costs of solar development inside U.S. borders. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. It is fair to conclude that investment in 

this emerging technology provides cumulative benefits as we enhance our competitive position not only for the invention of the 

technology but for its volume and deployment. 

Mr. ROGAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. GILLETTE. Senator Whitehouse, I would add that the investment is not only just the plants and the capacity, it is also the 

technology development. So we continue to focus on driving the efficiency of our panels up, sort of conversion of energy in to energy 

out, and we also continue to focus on the drive and yield out of our 

facilities, which drives the cost down. 

But not only that; it comes down to the complete installation of 

the solar power plant. So we also focus on what is called BOS, or 
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the rest of the components that go into the installation of the facility, whether it is the racking system or the inverters that go into 

it or the number of coupling boxes that are there, and improve the 

cycle time and the cost as well. So the total cost of the installed 

system is the combination of the panel and the rest of the costs. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. So what you are saying is that in the economic race to remain dominant in this emerging and fast growing 

international market, there are actually two races we need to win. 

One is the technological race, to always be a step ahead with the 

technology, and the second is the implementation and deployment 

race so that the volume and the jobs and the productivization—if 

that is a word—of the technology takes place under our leadership. 

Mr. GILLETTE. Yes, the innovation side, whether it is the installation or the panel itself, and how well it operates and what the 

yield of the asset is in the end is driven by the irradiation or the 

amount of sunlight, but also the cost to install it and operate it. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Well, I appreciate very much the panel’s 

interest, and I think I am getting anxious about getting over to the 

vote, so I am going to end my questioning. 

Senator BOXER. I know. I understand. 

I just want to thank the panel. I am sorry—he really did have 

some time, but he and I usually debate this issue of whether or not 

Price Anderson is a subsidy, but that is fine; we just don’t agree 

on it. 

But I just want to say to all of you thank you very much for your 

clear testimony. I continue to believe that we are on the right track 

if we move to clean energy on every single level, from the health 

of our families to the competitiveness of our Nation, and a lot of 

you are right there doing it, and I am very proud of your entrepreneurial spirit. Thank you very much, all of you, for being here 

today, including Mr. Morriss, who was very polite and very clear 

in his views. Thank you, and we stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

[An additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Thank you, Chairmen Sanders and Boxer, for holding this hearing today on the 

job growth potential of the solar industry and jobs in the clean energy sector. 

I firmly believe that the development, manufacture and wide scale deployment of 

innovative renewable energy technologies will be critical to long-term job growth in 

the U.S. and the recovery of the nation’s economy. 

Maryland clearly sees the potential for renewable energy development in our 

State, and the State legislature and Governor O’Malley have taken several notable 

steps to bring clean energy and the jobs that come with them to Maryland. This 

includes: • A robust 20 percent by 2020 renewable energy standard, which includes a 2 

percent solar electric standard by 2022. • Maryland’s RES requires that renewable sources be located within the State to 

count toward the RES. • Enactment of tax incentives and grants program for solar energy development 

and geothermal heating. 

• And Maryland’s commitment to reduce CO2 levels by 10 percent of 2006 levels 

by 2009 under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. 

I am happy to see that my State along with many others across the country recognizes the need to change how we get our power. The individual and disparate actions of individual States in encouraging action at the Federal level to reduce our 

dependence on foreign and dirty energy sources and create business incentives for 

clean tech companies is essential to creating a national and globally competitive 
106 

1Or $150 billion. 

market for clean energy technologies to base themselves and create jobs in the 

United States. 

A study conducted by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for 

American Progress estimates that investing just a little over 1 percent 1 of the annual U.S. gross domestic product into clean energy technologies nationwide would 

generate 26,000 new jobs for Maryland and hundreds of thousands of jobs nationwide. 

Maryland’s recent history with Clean Energy Jobs growth is reflective of how disparities in State policies that call for positive energy reforms like a robust renewable energy standard and reductions in carbon emissions lack the reinforcement of 

strong Federal policies call for the same positive reforms. 

In 2007 BP Solar completed a $25 million expansion of its manufacturing facilities 

in Frederick, Maryland, and was preparing to embark on a second facilities expansion. This was excellent news for the State and the employees of this state-of-theart facility which employs nearly 2,000 people. 

However, a year after breaking ground on the second expansion of their Frederick 

headquarters, BP Solar reevaluated the expansion plans and put off the expansion 

and ultimately shed 140 jobs from this plant. 

I want to bring those jobs back to Frederick, and I want to see similar job opportunities for communities around the country, but it’s going to take a national commitment to clean energy to get us there. 

Solar energy in particular provides tremendous small business opportunity. As 

Jeff Wolfe from groSolar, which operates throughout Maryland employing solar installation technicians and supply managers, can surely testify, small scale use of 

solar provides tremendous opportunities for entrepreneurs and consumers. 

In Maryland there are more than 50 small businesses registered as members of 

the Solar Energy Industries Association. These are local solar retailers, installers, 

engineering firms and energy consultants working in my State to bring clean energy 

solutions to the people of Maryland. 

Additionally the power generation company NRG Energy is retooling its Vienna, 

Maryland, power plant to utilize biomass and solar energy, and plans are underway 

to bring offshore wind throughout the mid-Atlantic States. 

Despite the lack of an international greenhouse gas emissions agreement, it is 

clear that our global competitors are not waiting for an international agreement to 

ramp up production of clean energy technologies. 

There are many other countries around the world competing for these industries 

to do business on their soil, and they are implementing policy frameworks that 

make it much easier for clean energy companies to do business abroad than to do 

business here in America. 

These are not foreign governments with lax environment or labor standards; rather countries like Spain, France, Japan and Germany have merely established robust 

renewable energy standards creating lucrative markets for companies to do business. It is unfortunate that we import so much of our finite energy resources from 

abroad as it is, and it is unconscionable that we would do the same with renewable 

energy sources in the future. 

Given America’s historical ingenuity and manufacturing capacity we can become 

the world’s leading supplier of essential renewable energy technologies. Revamping 

the American economy for the 21st century will put us in charge of our own energy 

supplies. The Clean Energy and Green Jobs legislation we pass will put us on a 

path to energy independence, and that’s a path to improved national security, increased GDP and increased job growth. 

I thank Chairmen Sanders and Boxer for holding this hearing. 

Æ