Trump will redirect billions in unspent funds from Biden’s climate law to ‘real infrastructure’  

(Daily Callers News Foundation) – President-elect Donald Trump is planning to redirect unspent Inflation Reduction Act funding to spending on infrastructure, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

“President Trump will rapidly defeat inflation and bring down all prices by ending the Democrats’ anti-energy crusade, which will cut energy prices in half during his first 12 months in office,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, told the DCNF in a written statement. “He will also terminate the Green New Scam and rescind all unspent funds from the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ and redirect them to spending on real infrastructure.”

As the Biden-Harris administration rushes to formally obligate tens of billions in IRA funding before Biden leaves office, President-elect Trump is moving forward with plans to repeal the IRA and redirect all leftover spending from Biden’s climate law to spending on infrastructure. The incoming Trump administration’s vow to reprogram remaining IRA funding could face legal challenges due to restrictions on reallocation within the congressional appropriations, and failure to spend as Congress directed could violate a Nixon-era budget law that forces the executive branch to spend money appropriated by Congress.

Potentially Billions In Unspent IRA Funds

The IRA, which passed on party-line votes with no Republican support, appropriated nearly $105 billion for “climate” spending. The Biden administration does not appear to be on track to formally obligate this massive sum before president-elect Trump takes office, which could grant Trump control over tens of billions of dollars in leftover IRA funding when he returns to the Oval Office in January. (RELATED: Biden-Harris Admin Taps Org That Backs Open Borders, Reparations To Help Dole Out Taxpayer Dollars In Red States)

The Biden-Harris Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may leave the Trump administration with at least $3.5 billion in unspent IRA funds, including more than $1.5 billion in “environmental justice” grant spending, according an EPA press release from Aug. 16, which stated the agency is on track to obligate more than $38 billion of its IRA funding by Dec. 31. 

“Based on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s findings so far, I would hope [EPA] Administrator [Michael] Regan would not take the extraordinary step of rushing the distribution of more than $1.5 billion dollars in so-called ‘environmental justice’ grants to obscure groups with only a vague charge to talk about environmental issues and teach other organizations how to apply for more grants,” Republican Virginia Rep. Morgan Griffith, chair of the Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a written statement.

The EPA’s “environmental justice” grant spending under the IRA have doled outhundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing advocacy groups under the guise of environmental justice, according to extensive reporting on the agency’s grant recipients from the DCNF. 

The EPA declined to comment on the DCNF’s inquiry about whether the agency plans to announce additional grant awards and formally commit the remaining “environmental justice” IRA funds to nonprofit entities before Trump takes office.

Reviving The President’s ‘Impoundment’ Authority

Trump vowed to repeal Biden’s $1.2 trillion climate law and rescind all unspent funds on the campaign trail, dubbing the IRA the “Green New Scam” in a speechat the New York Economic Club in September. Neither Trump nor his team have previously commented on the incoming administration’s plan to redirect unspent IRA fundings to spending on infrastructure.

Leavitt’s pledge that the president-elect will seek to reprogram all unspent funds to infrastructure spending could subject the incoming administration to litigation for violating the IRA and the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act — the omnibus bill that appropriated the vast majority of IRA funding — according analysis from the left-leaning Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University Law School.

The 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act set a 10% reprogramming limit on IRA funds, which could restrict the president-elect’s authority to redirect all unspent IRA funding to spending on “real infrastructure,” according to Sabin Center analysis.

Trump could also seek to withhold unspent IRA funds, which would directly challenge the 1974 Impoundment Control Act (ICA) that requires the executive branch to spend the entire amount of a congressional appropriation.

“When I return to the White House, I will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court, and if necessary, get Congress to overturn it. We will overturn it,” Trump said in a campaign video vowing to revive the president’s authority to impound a congressional appropriation in June 2023. “Reasserting the president’s historic Impoundment authority will also restore critical negotiating leverage with Congress to keep spending under control. Very simple. We are going to keep spending under control.”

“Mr. Trump has previously suggested this statute is unconstitutional, and we believe the current Supreme Court would likely side with him on this question,” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisors wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 20.

Russ Vought, Trump’s pick to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) who also helmed the office during the president-elect’s first administration, argues that the ICA unconstitutionally infringes on the executive’s authority to impound a congressional appropriation, according to several interviews he participated in this year.

“For 200 years Presidents had the ability to not spend a congressional appropriation,” Vought told Tucker Carlson in an interview on Nov. 18. “Power of the purse means that Congress gets to set the ceiling — you can’t spend without a congressional appropriation — but you weren’t ever meant to be forced to spend it — and it has become a floor.”

“Resuscitation of the President’s impoundment authority will serve as a critical tool to curb excessive spending, reduce inflation, and dismantle the woke and weaponized bureaucracy targeting American citizens,” an introduction on the president’s impoundment power from the Trump-aligned Center for Renewing America published on Nov. 21 states. 

Likely Democratic Resistance

Democratic lawmakers would almost certainly challenge the administration’s authority to impound a congressional appropriation, and would likely oppose the Trump administration’s proposal to redirect unspent IRA funds to spending on infrastructure.

“The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous,” Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, ranking member of the House Budget Committee, wrote in a press release following the release of the Musk-Ramaswamy WSJ op-ed. “Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people’s elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk. House Democrats are ready to fight back against any illegal attempt to gut the programs that keep American families safe and help them make ends meet.”

The Trump transition team did not respond to the DCNF’s inquiry about whether “real infrastructure” spending includes border wall infrastructure. Trump notably diverted nearly $10 billion from the Department of Defense budget to border wall infrastructure at the southern border during his first administration.

President Biden subsequently redirected more than $2 billion of this funding back to DoD projects in June 2021. The Biden OMB claimed that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border and costs American taxpayers billions of dollars is not a serious policy solution or responsible use of Federal funds.”