WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has distributed at least US$27.6bil of dollars in financing to clean-energy companies in its final days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
The moves – including a US$15bil loan guarantee to California utility PG&E Corp for a host of clean-energy projects that were announced last Friday – mark President Joe Biden’s last-ditch efforts to secure his climate legacy before Trump takes charge, with a promise to rescind unused green funds.
The Biden administration also last Friday finalised a nearly US$1bil loan for Ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada and closed a nearly US$600mil loan guarantee for a Puerto Rico solar project by Convergent Energy and Power Inc.
Other deals finalised by the Energy Department’s (DOE) Loan Programmes Office in the past month include a US$6.6bil loan to Rivian Automotive Inc, a nearly US$1.7bil loan guarantee for hydrogen producer Plug Power Inc and US$1.67bil for biofuel maker Calumet Inc.
“The pace of announcements is unprecedented,” said Kennedy Nickerson, who formerly worked as a policy adviser in the Loan Programmes Office.
“It really demonstrates the uncertainty around how the Trump administration is going to operate the programme.”
The DOE’s loan programme, which became a US$400bil green bank thanks to an infusion from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, has been a powerful tool to fight climate change and help commercialise emerging green technologies.
In all, the department said last Friday, the programme had closed on more than US$60bil in financing for 25 projects during Biden’s four years in office. It has generated billions of dollars in interest payments for the government.
The DOE said in a separate statement last Friday it had committed more than US$170bil for grants and loans through funding made available in the Inflation Reduction Act and a separate bipartisan infrastructure law representing 82% of the total grant funding available through those laws. — Bloomberg
