The Green New Deal Falls into a Black Hole
The energy developers’ business model based on Federal financial support for clean energy is dead. Sure, there are lots of court challenges to the authority given to Elon Musk’s DOGE teams, appeals to have DOE and EPA grants and loans restored, and much Congressional posturing and throat clearing.
And yes, some clean energy grant recipients will get funds released from the dungeons under the Office of Management and Budget. From the beginning DOGE was intended to be a temporary organization anyway, so its technies’ authority will disappear sooner or later. Loans for projects that have all their other approvals, steel in the ground, or whose contractors have already received a Notice to Proceed are like to stay in place. Subject to continuing compliance with their conditions, of course.
But it’s hard to overstate the impact of the Trump Administration’s personnel cuts and funding “pauses”. In particular, the Department of Energy’s Loan Program Office and Grid Deployment Office have gone overnight from an “entrepreneurial” shoving of money out the door to staff layoffs and “a department-wide review of all funding, including grants and loans.”
Jigar Shah, the Loan Program Office’s colorful Biden-Harris boss, announced just before heading out the door ahead of Inauguration Day that “the Office has announced 53 deals totaling approximately $ 107.57 billion in committed project investment… we articulated a vision for (the LPO) as a catalyst for a new American clean energy strategy...”
Shah will be fine. He knows how to market and sell a product, including himself. Other employees at the LPO, not so fine. The DOE’s resident DOGE team has been busy axing LPO staff, particularly newer employees who are politically and legally easier to lay off. These were the climate policy enthusiasts who papered the new clean energy lending in the last year and a half of the Biden-Harris Administration.