WASHINGTON ― The Biden administration has pushed out nearly all available funds from President Joe Biden’s signature climate and economic laws as the White House works to ensure his “Investing in America” legacy survives the incoming Trump administration.
The federal government has awarded 99% of existing grant funding for clean energy, infrastructure and manufacturing projects, totaling about $750 billion, according to a new 75-page White House report obtained by USA TODAY that breaks down the spending before Biden leaves office Monday.
The distributed funds include only money available through the 2024 fiscal year ‒ underscoring Biden’s reliance on the Trump team to maintain future spending.
Biden will discuss the progress report ‒ which outlines what Biden calls “the most significant investment in America since the New Deal” ‒ during remarks Friday afternoon to mayors gathered in Washington for the U.S. Conference of Mayors winter meeting. It’s scheduled to be one of Biden’s final public addresses before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in Monday.
“We are now better positioned than any nation in the world to win the economic competition of the 21st century,” Biden says in the report.
(Read full report here.)
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The awarded grants represent available money in the current fiscal year or earlier from massive spending packages that stretch out a decade: a $1 trillion infrastructure law, $53 billion in subsidies for microchip companies from the CHIPS and Science Act, and about $400 billion for clean-energy projects from the Inflation Reduction Act, including incentives to support the manufacturing of products like electric cars, solar panels and batteries.
About 90% of the existing grant funding has been formally obligated, meaning the government has entered into a binding contract with the recipient of the grants.
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Trump has threatened to roll back many Biden policies on climate and energy outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act, which the then-Democratic-controlled Congress approved in 2022 before Republicans took power in the House.
But the contracting process effectively safeguards many projects. A future administration cannot rescind or withdraw grants awarded to private companies from the CHIPS Act or other laws ‒ even if the funding hasn’t gone out ‒ unless the recipient is found in breach of contract, the White House says.
Biden is also betting the clean-energy factories and other projects are so popular in red-leaning districts and states that congressional Republicans will lack the political will to roll back the policies.
“I think the change that we have seen over the last four years through these investments is really hard to reverse,” said Natalie Quillian, Biden’s outgoing White House deputy chief of staff. “And I think you’re not just seeing it from the federal government, you’re seeing it from the private sector. You’re seeing it from state government. You’re seeing it from local government.”
The final spending allocations follow what White House chief of staff Jeff Zients in a White House memo last month called a “sprint to the finish line” with Biden charging his administration to award as much funding as possible.
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Yet as Biden prepares to leave the White House, he has expressed frustration about the disconnect between projects that can take several years to materialize and Americans’ immediate economic anxieties about inflation.
“I think that we would’ve been a hell of a lot better off had we been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the ground quicker,” Biden told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview earlier this month. “There are things that are going to create enormous wealth and work out there, but it takes time.”
The report on Biden’s spending programs breaks down the status of infrastructure and other projects. It also includes projections if the Trump administration carries out the infrastructure spending. Highlights include:
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
