Biden rushes to Trump-proof his signature energy, chip policies
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The White House is racing to lock down President Biden’s dearest policy goals, distributing billions of dollars to safeguard favored projects before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. With less than two months left in his term, Biden plans to pursue a laundry list of items including funding weapons for Ukraine, pressing for stability in Gaza and winning confirmation of roughly a dozen federal judges.
The judicial confirmations could bring him close to the 234 Trump accomplished during his first term. One of the Biden administration’s most aggressive moves could come from a $400 billion clean-energy lending program inside the Energy Department. The Loan Programs Office was turbocharged by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which gave it extra funds to lend to clean-energy businesses.
Biden administration officials fear a Trump administration could stop making loans from the program, which was largely dormant during Trump’s first term. The administration also wants to protect clean-energy projects at ports around the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency in October awarded nearly $3 billion to dozens of ports to invest in new solar arrays, decarbonized trucks and other green equipment.
The agency hopes to complete most of the awards by the end of 2024, legally binding the government to make the payouts. And U.S. officials are racing to deliver billions of dollars in manufacturing grants to Intel and others to complete a significant portion of the 2022 Chips Act to revive U.S.
chip production before Biden leaves office. The Commerce Department has provisionally awarded most of the $39 billion of grant money allocated under the act. The Biden administration this week
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