Biden administration quickly spends climate money as Trump threatens to roll it back By Reuters

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump said he would cancel all unspent funds from President Joe Biden’s signature climate law if he wins the Nov. 5 presidential election.

But the vast majority of the grants will be spent by the time a new president takes office in January, and targeting what remains would be a massive legal challenge, according to Biden administration officials.

The Biden administration has so far awarded $90 billion in grants for climate, clean energy and other projects under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which represents 70 percent of the Act’s roughly $120 billion in total grants focused on climate and more than 80 percent of what the law made available before 2025, according to administration officials.

Another $15 billion could be granted in the coming months.

The administration is distributing the funds “as quickly and fairly as possible,” White House deputy chief of staff Natalie Quillian told Reuters.

She added that the unspent funds — as well as the billions of dollars in tax credits available annually under the law for things like electric vehicles, solar plants and wind farms — would be difficult to freeze if Trump regained office.

“No president is above the law, and the law is pretty clear here: The executive branch does not have the authority to withhold appropriated funds just because they might disagree with policies passed by Congress,” Quillian said.

The Inflation Reduction Act is considered the largest US climate bill in history, valued at more than $400 billion in total. That figure includes grants and other spending to spur clean energy deployment, along with incentives and tax credits.

Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, said in an economy-focused speech on Sept. 5 that he wants to “repeal all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act” if elected.

The former Republican president is running against Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, a Democrat who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said Tuesday that if his party wins control of Congress on Election Day, it will target the Inflation Relief Act, or IRA, within the first 100 days.

Whether this is likely depends on the makeup of the next Congress after the election.

US House Republicans have tried to repeal part or all of the law 42 times, but failed to get enough votes.

Last month, 18 House Republicans sent a letter to Johnson urging him not to target the law because of the investment that IRA subsidies have attracted to their districts.

The Biden administration agencies with the most climate-related IRA funding told Reuters they are moving quickly with their grants.

The Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, have said they have already obligated all, or nearly all, of their IRA-related funding.

Meanwhile, the Interior Department said it has awarded or made available nearly $4.9 billion of the total $6.4 billion in Inflation Relief Act funding.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department said it has finalized rules for using major IRA tax credits for 22 of 24 available programs and plans to finalize the rest this year.

Trump would have difficulty repurposing that money because of protections in the Seizure Control Act of 1974, according to Columbia University law professor Gillian Metzger. That law was passed after President Richard Nixon seized funds for federal spending he opposed on political grounds.

“These measures really constrain the authority of presidents to do that,” she said.