Biden administration scrambles to spend funds, approve projects in its final weeks
WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials are working against the clock doling out billions in grants and taking other steps to try to preserve at least some of the outgoing president’s legacy before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“Let’s make every day count,” President Biden said in an address to the nation after Vice President Kamala Harris conceded defeat to Trump in the presidential race.
Trump has pledged to rescind unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and healthcare law and stop clean-energy development projects.
“There’s only one administration at a time,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters at a news conference Thursday. “That’s true now, and it will also be true after Jan. 20. Our responsibility is to make good use of the funds that Congress has authorized for us and that we’re responsible for assigning and disbursing throughout the last three years.”
But Trump will control more than the purse strings come January. His administration also can propose new regulations to undo some of what the Biden administration did through the rule-making process.
Here are some of the moves the Biden administration is taking now:
Getting infrastructure spending out the door
Biden administration officials hope projects funded under the $1-trillion infrastructure law and $375-billion climate law will endure beyond Biden’s term and are working to ensure that money from the landmark measures continues to flow.
On Friday, Buttigieg announced more than $3.4 billion in grants for projects designed to improve passenger rail service, help U.S. ports, reduce highway deaths and support domestic manufacturing of sustainable transportation materials.
“We are investing in better transportation systems that touch every corner of the country and in the workers who will manufacture materials and build projects,” he said. “Communities are going to see safer commutes, cleaner air and stronger supply chains that we all count on.”
Speeding up environmental goals
Announcements of major environmental grants and project approvals have sped up in recent months in what White House officials describe as “sprinting to the finish” of Biden’s four-year term.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently set a nationwide deadline for removal of lead pipes and announced nearly $3 billion to help local water systems comply. The agency also announced that oil and gas companies for the first time will have to pay a federal fee if they emit dangerous methane above certain levels.
The Energy Department, meanwhile, announced a $544-million loan to a Michigan company to expand manufacturing of high-quality silicon carbide wafers for electric vehicles. The loan is one of 28 deals totaling$37 billion granted under a clean-energy loan program that was revived and expanded under Biden.
“There is a new urgency to get it all done. We’re seeing explosions of money going out the door,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director of the Sierra Club. Biden and his allies “really want to finish the job they started.”
Ukraine aid
Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week that Biden wants to “spend down the authority that Congress has allocated and authorized before he leaves office. So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that happens.”
Ukrainians fear Trump will cut off military aid for the war against Russia, even as Ukraine’s leader aims to win him over with congratulations and praise.
The Biden administration would have to rush $7.1 billion in weapons — $4.3 billion from the 2024 supplemental aid and $2.8 billion that is still on the books in savings due to the Pentagon recalculating the value of systems sent — from the Defense Department’s stockpiles in order to spend all of those funds obligated before Trump is sworn in.
There’s also an additional $2.2 billion available to put weapons systems on long-term contracts. However, recent aid packages have been much smaller, around $200 million to $300 million each.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has said the funds are already obligated, which should make them harder to take back because the incoming administration would have to reverse that.
Pressure to quickly confirm judicial picks
Another priority for the White House is getting Senate confirmation of as many federal judges as possible before Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20.
The Senate recently voted 51 to 44 to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge in northern Illinois. More than a dozen pending judicial nominees have advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee; eight judicial nominations are awaiting committee votes and six are waiting for committee hearings.
Trump has urged Republicans to oppose efforts to confirm judicial nominees. “No Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership,” he wrote on social media site X on Nov. 10, before congressional Republicans chose their new leaders.
Student loan forgiveness
The Education Department has been hurrying to finalize a new federal rule that would cancel student loans for people who face financial hardship. The proposal — one of Biden’s only student loan plans that hasn’t been halted by federal courts — is in a public comment period scheduled to end Dec. 2.
The arrival of the Trump administration signals the end of efforts by the Biden administration’s Education Department to lighten student borrowers’ debt burden.
After that, the department would have a narrow window to finalize the rule and begin carrying it out, a process that usually takes months. Like Biden’s other efforts, it would almost certainly face a legal challenge.
Also, the Biden administration has room to speed up student loan cancellation for people who were already promised relief because they were cheated by their colleges, said Aaron Ament, an Education Department official for the Obama administration and president of the National Student Legal Defense Network.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona could decide that case and others rather than hand them off to the Trump administration, which is expected to be far friendlier to for-profit colleges. “It’s a no-brainer,” Ament said. “There’s a good number of cases that have been sitting on Cardona’s desk. It’s hard to imagine that those would just be left untouched.”
Trump has not yet said what he would do on student loan forgiveness, but he and Republicans have criticized Biden’s efforts.
Hussein, Daly and Binkley write for the Associated Press. AP writers Tara Copp and Dan Merica contributed to this report.
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