Trump is freezing climate funds. Can he do that?

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The two most notable accomplishments of President Joe Biden’s administration were two measures that collectively invested about one trillion dollars in catastrophe resilience and sustainable energy. Biden’s economic and climate policies were mostly influenced by the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (2021), or BIL and IRA. The IRA provided large tax incentives to businesses and people to encourage the adoption of renewable technologies, such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and induction stoves, and both bills directed funding to states, localities, entrepreneurs, and organizations for renewables and new resilient infrastructure.

The new Trump administration has attacked the unrestricted government funding in both measures with a shock-and-awe strategy since taking office in January.

In reference to the Biden administration’s climate measures, which were part of the BIL and IRA, Trump has declared that he will end the Green New Deal, which I refer to as the Green New Scam. His government plans to do so by withholding hundreds of billions of dollars from the Biden laws that were intended to pay for community solar projects, alleviate drought, and clean up contaminated communities. In addition to numerous pending restraining orders from federal courts, Trump’s executive measures seem to be in violation of numerous federal laws and centuries of legal history. In the meantime, the people and organizations that were anticipating assistance have been put into a state of upheaval, and it is still unknown whether the funding will finally proceed or be cut.

The Trump administration’s lack of openness is largely to blame for the disarray, which is made worse by its swift and occasionally contradictory acts. Here, we’ve attempted to address a few fundamental queries: To date, how much money has been spent from the IRA and BIL? How much has not yet been disbursed? In reality, how much may be cut? And what are the chances that funds that Biden has already released can be rescinded by the Trump administration?

Grist has developed a tool that maps almost all of the projects that received grant financing through the IRA and BIL and provides context, when available, on which may be at risk from Trump’s orders in order to assist address those questions and provide trustworthy information as the situation unfolds.

Normally, before spending money, the federal government goes through a number of procedures. First, Congress gives an organization like the EPA a specified amount of money for a particular goal, like combating diesel truck air pollution. With the BIL and IRA, lawmakers took that action.

The government then selects some organization to get a portion of the funding, such as the city of Denver or a nonprofit environmental organization in Los Angeles. The rules of the grant are outlined in a contract that the agency drafts with that organization. This constitutes a legally enforceable agreement and is referred to as obligating the money. The Treasury Department does not transfer the funds to the recipient until months or years after the incident. This is referred to as outlaying funds.

This process is largely beyond the executive branch’s control. With very few exceptions, the executive agencies are required to obligate funds appropriated by Congress. Impoundment is the refusal to pledge allotted funds; a legislation restricting when presidents could use this power was created by Congress in 1974 in response to the abuses of the Richard Nixon administration. According to budget experts, refusing to spend funds that have already been promised constitutes a direct breach of contract with an agency’s grantee, which is an even more flagrant violation of legal precedent, in addition to potentially breaking that statute.

Aziz Huq, a constitutional law researcher at the University of Chicago who has researched the legality of withholding federal funds, stated that the general rule is that the administration has always been believed to be bound by that command after Congress appropriates and directs the expenditure of money. It has been understood that a law [must] be implemented when it has been properly enacted. He cited a 2012 Supreme Court ruling in which the justices determined that the government could not refuse to provide required financing.

The Biden administration hurried to deliver as much infrastructure funding from BIL and IRA as possible once Trump was re-elected in November. In the end, it obligated the majority of the funds from the two laws and concluded hundreds of new funding agreements with states, towns, tribes, organizations, and businesses.

The Biden administration attempted to obligate cash for clean energy and pollution control measures before Trump gutted the IRA’s climate-focused funding. For example, the historic Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which has given community banks $27 billion to finance solar and home weatherization, was obligated in full by the EPA.

Because a large portion of the BIL’s infrastructure-focused funding could not be released until states and cities had finalized their building contracts, Biden made less headway in this area. As of December, the Transportation Department had only committed one-third of the nearly $12 billion it got for airport upgrades and half of the $65 billion Congress had set aside for public transportation projects.

According to an EPA report released in January, spending on environmental justice also fell behind. The agency was only able to obligate two-thirds of the $3 billion designated for community protection, whereas it was able to obligate 98 percent of the $33 billion it received for climate action. A $13 million program to monitor the air quality at schools in underprivileged regions is one example of an environmental justice initiative that never got off the ground. The Trump administration is probably going to do everything in its power to scrap these programs.

By the time Trump took office, the Department of Transportation had committed roughly 65 percent of its spending, and EPA had committed 88 percent. Whole-of-government data on financing status was not made public by the departing Biden administration.

However, Trump put thousands of energy and infrastructure projects around the nation in peril on his first day in office when he issued an executive order to halt financing from both BIL and IRA for at least 90 days. Additionally, the order states that even when the halt is over, any money associated with what Trump mockingly refers to as the Green New Deal would be discontinued. It’s unknown which programs his administration will choose to discontinue in addition to his criticism of BIL and IRA financing.

For grantees, the obliged position may become problematic. The Washington Post found that even while the Biden administration obligated over $50 billion in IRA funds, it only used less than $20 billion of those funds. Elon Musk, the director of the Trump effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency, effectively controls the Treasury’s bank accounts, despite officials’ legally bound obligations to transfer monies. Musk wants to be able to stop making payments whenever he wants.

A federal judge in Rhode Island named John McConnell stopped Trump’s executive order on the IRA and BIL on January 31. Trump’s Justice Department then issued a letter directing agencies to abide by the decision. However, the two bills’ funding remain in an unusual legal limbo.

McConnell stated on Monday that the administration appeared to be disobeying his directive and threatened to hold it criminally contemptuous if it did not promptly unfreeze money. After then, the administration appealed McConnell’s order.

As of right now, it appears like every department is responding differently to the legal ambiguity surrounding the pause, and one Trump cabinet member has even threatened to reclaim money that had already been committed.

Zeldin asserted in a video released on Wednesday that the Biden administration had moved almost $20 billion of its IRA funds to one bank. Zeldin demanded that the bank return the required funds to the government so that EPA could regain custody of them without providing any proof of improper behavior.

Zeldin stated, “We will examine every penny that has left the door.”

It s still possible that most funding will come through after the administration s 90-day pause, but for the moment, most other agencies are refusing to comment, citing the pending litigation over Trump s executive order. Neither the Department of Transportation, the Department of Energy, nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to Grist s requests for comment. According to a Department of the Interior official, the organization keeps checking that funding choices align with the President’s Executive Orders.

Almost all spending related to climate change still appears to be blocked for the time being. The $7 billion Solar For All program from the EPA was one of the main IRA items. The program endowed community banks and green financial institutions with money to set up solar funds, which would have opened up access to solar panels and heat pumps for almost a million low-income households. But one grantee who was about to set up such a fund said she hasn t been able to get her first tranche of federal money.

The grantee, who asked to remain anonymous to prevent reprisals from the Trump administration, stated that the payment mechanism is down. All of the contractors working on Solar for Everyone are currently on hold, and they must be paid.

Companies and organizations across the country are experiencing the same thing abiofuels startup in Montana, aclimate education nonprofitin New Orleans, amicrogrid manufacturer in Ohiohave all said they are unable to receive funding. The same goes for aschool district in St. Louisthat is waiting on low-emission buses anda farmer in Marylandwho was going to install solar panels. Numerous businesses and charitable organizations have stated that they are unable to pay their debts or make payroll. If the funding freeze continues, numerous projects will fall apart and thousands of jobs may be lost, experts said.

According to Jillian Blanchard, vice president of climate change and environmental justice at Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, many of the grantees affected are rural community farmers in Massachusetts and Arizona, [or] small nonprofits on the ground attempting to implement air monitoring programs. These are entities that don t have a financial buffer. If they suffer significant delays, they will go under, they will go bankrupt, the programs will not happen.

The interactive IRA/BIL funding map was reported and developed by Clayton Aldern.Gautama Mehta contributed reporting to this story.

This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/politics/trump-climate-funding-freeze-ira-bil-biden/.

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