At a meeting Tuesday with Congressional Republican leaders, President Donald Trump suggested that his signature Border Wall be covered with solar panels as a way to fund its construction. The meeting had been called to discuss the Republicans’ immediate legislative agenda including the debt ceiling and repealing the Affordable Care Act. The Solar Border Wall idea reportedly left many of those at the meeting scratching their heads.
According to Axios, which first reported on the meeting:
Trump said his vision was a wall 40 feet to 50 feet high and covered with solar panels so they’d be “beautiful structures,” the people said. The President said that most walls you hear about are 14 feet or 15 feet tall but this would be nothing like those walls. Trump told the lawmakers they could talk about the solar-paneled wall as long as they said it was his idea.
The Solar Border Wall idea comes after the president failed to make Mexico pay for the Wall, as promised during the election campaign, and the reluctance of Republicans in Congress to appropriate funds for its construction. It also comes amidst the president’s identification of coal as the fuel of the future.
President Trump is asking for $1.6 for the first 74 miles of the Border Wall in the 2018 Federal Budget. That was before the solar panel idea.
