Biden Team Sprinting To Disburse Climate Solutions & Infrastructure Funding – CleanTechnica

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It’s no secret — the 2024 US election for president is a super tight one, and the difference between what would happen under a Kamala Harris presidency versus another Donald Trump one is immense. Not enough people realize it, but Biden’s work advancing climate legislation is completely unmatched in US history. An enormous number of climate solutions initiatives were included in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and if you’ve been paying attention to CleanTechnica, you’ve seen countless stories on programs and initiatives from the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and other agencies.

Overall, Biden’s and the Democrats’ policies have spurred an unprecedented resurgence in manufacturing jobs in the country, a great economic boom, and the greatest climate investments the US has ever made.

However, there’s still a lot of funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that. has not yet been disbursed. Again, if you follow all of the DOE news we publish here, there’s a constant stream of funding disbursements going out for various energy efficiency, electric vehicle, solar energy, wind energy, and other cleantech programs and projects. It can’t all be finalized and sent out in one big batch. However, with the next presidential election coming up, there’s a risk that Donald Trump could be elected and then could stop much of this clean energy and EV funding.

“The administration is in a race against the clock to get billions in ‘clean’ energy funding out the door before the end of his term,” Axios writes after noting all of the recent funding announcements for various initiatives. Explaining why it matters, Axios adds that “Republican nominee Donald Trump has vowed to claw back unspent funding from President Biden’s signature climate law.”

It’s crazy to think that someone would stop funding things a supermajority of Americans support, as they do for clean energy and environmental matters, but that has typically been the way Republicans roll in recent decades, and killing these efforts has been one of the top focus areas for Trump previously. So, the Biden administration is sprinting to implement items from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

“Announcements from the Biden administration have been coming fast and furious, from $7.3 billion for rural electric cooperatives to boost renewable power to nearing finalization of a new marine sanctuary in the last week alone,” Axios writes.

“Last week’s announcements alone included $100 million from the bipartisan infrastructure and climate laws to hone extreme weather and climate forecasting at NOAA and $300 million from the EPA for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in tribal communities. In addition, the White House touted more wind energy investments, bringing total offshore wind power approvals to about 15 gigawatts, and the EPA touted new spending on cleaning up brownfield sites.”

Yes, presidents race to get stuff done at the end of their terms. I’m sure a feeling that it’s all ending too quickly kicks in and people in the administration are eager to get so many things checked off from their to-do lists. However, experts say that the Biden administration is working in hyperdrive even relative to previous administrations. But that’s sort of the point, too. The administration has been working in hyperdrive all along. That’s how it got the monumental Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and even more monumental Inflation Reduction Act passed in the first place. Donald Trump talked about a coming “Infrastructure Week” for most of his presidency but never had one. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s team not only held one, but has basically been rolling out Infrastructure Week after Infrastructure Week after Infrastructure Week in order to fund the rebuilding of USA’s infrastructure and the building of new factories and infrastructure critical to the prosperous future of the country.

“I cannot remember a moment in time during this administration when we were not sprinting,” White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told Axios.

It’s really not complicated. All you have to do is look at that second chart in the trio of charts above and you can see which administration was more focused on getting stuff done and making US manufacturing and infrastructure stronger in order to boost the economy and make the US more competitive on the global stage again.

Featured image credit: Democratic Party.