Over the past two working days, the Biden administration's energy department has signed nearly $42 billion in green energy projects – a payment exceeding the total released by its LPO Office (LPO) over the past decade. [emphasis, links added]
LPO blocked a spending frenzy during a frenzy of January 16-17, 2025 after Vice President Kamala Harris' death in November, which approved at least $93 billion in current and future spending.
It seems Biden officials are eager to deploy billions of dollars to approved funds in the hopes of the incoming Trump administration seeking money redirected from clean energy projects.
Despite warnings from the department's inspector general, an agreement was reached urging the loan office to suspend operations in December due to concerns that post-election loans could bring about conflicts of interest.
In just a few months, some of these deals have become woefully plagued, leading to fears that the Biden administration has created multiple Solindras, a green energy company that went bankrupt after the Obama administration gave $570 million.
These transactions include:
- Sunnova, a rooftop solar clothing company that filed for bankruptcy this month, has so far filed for $382 million in bankruptcy. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
- The battery recycling facility Li-Cycle approved a $445 million loan in November, but the company has since been sold and has filed for bankruptcy. The Department of Energy said nothing was paid for the transaction. Li-Cycle did not respond to a request for comment.
- A $705 million loan was approved on January 17 for Zum Energy, an electric school bus company in California, and its “Marigold Project.” Electric school buses are currently priced more than twice as expensive as diesel engines. According to usaspending.gov, Zum has so far received $21.7 million from the government. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
- On January 16, a $9.63 billion blue oval SK loan was the second largest post-election deal, offering $15 billion in loans to Pacific gas and electric motors the next day, most of which were used for renewable energy. The Blue Oval Project in Kentucky is a joint venture between Ford Motor Company and a South Korean entity – which has been dealing with many workplace complaints and has built a second electric electric battery manufacturing plant there. The Department of Energy said the deal had more than $7 billion in obligations. The blue oval did not respond to a request for comment.
Its designated money and hasty ways have attracted the attention of the Trump administration.
“It’s very concerned about how many billions of dollars were kicked out of the door without proper due diligence in the last few days of the Athletics government,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement to the RCI. “The DOE is conducting a thorough review of financial aid to determine the dollars that are wasted by taxpayers.”
The huge amount of money comes from the 2022 inflation reduction law, which injects $400 billion into LPOsthe former drowsy energy sector was originally designed to stimulate nuclear energy projects.
This total represents more than 10 times promised by the LPO in any fiscal year in which it exists. The office’s largest fiscal year ahead of the post-election blowout was 2024, when it promised $34.8 billion, records show.
Even in the rush to drive billions out of the door in the past few months, LPO has not promised $300 billion in funding to reduce inflation. Trump administration officials have canceled some smaller deals.
Secretary Wright recently urged Congress to keep the money in place, as the LPO is now aiming to use it to promote the Trump administration's energy policy, especially in nuclear projects.
The unprecedented cash wave of LPO echoes the efforts of the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to push $20 billion out of the door before leaving the office.
As RCI previously reported, The EPA has never had a related grant action, with a mission to grant $27 billion in inflation reduction bill funding through the reduction of greenhouse gas funds and all planned solar energy.
It did so in less than six months in 2024, including an unorthodox arrangement where Biden officials put about $20 billion outside the Treasury control. The money refers to the few nonprofits, some of which have thin and light assets and are associated with politically linked directors.
Bonanza has less time after the LPO election. However, the Department of Energy’s deals mainly involve for-profit businesses, which raises questions about whether the Biden administration is fostering companies that survive in the private market.
If any company pays a significant amount in the future, shareholders may get rich, and taxpayers will only receive interest on the loan.
“The loan office should not be engaged in a virtual risk business,” said Mark Mills, executive director of the National Center for Energy Analysis. “But in a few cases, it may make sense to be a catalyst or backstage for viable and important projects from a national security or policy perspective.”
The RCI spoke with several Trump administration officials who declined to comment on the record, given the extensive review of the post-election arrangements of the LPO and other energy sector projects related to Biden's climate agenda.
“They want to bring billions of dollars to companies that may not exist unless they can get money from the government.” A current official said. “Like them, the business plan is ‘How do we get capital from the government?’ Transparent
During Biden's tenure, the office was run by Jigar Shah, who was appointed to the board of directors of the nonprofit Sustainable Energy Centre on June 17. Bloomberg News reported last month that Shah “helped select about 400 companies with development plans to receive grants and loans of more than $100 million.”
In response to the Trump administration's pushback of green subsidies, Bloomberg reported Shah is working to help him fund his business transformation in Europe.
According to tax records, the center relies primarily on government contracts rather than donations and believes revenues have increased from $274.1 million in 2023 to $500 million in 2024. The center did not respond to a request to speak with Shah.
According to the Department of Energy and usaspending.gov, no entity has received all transactions reached by the Biden administration so far. In a few cases, the company has entered the current government and has chosen to deal.
Nevertheless, in some cases millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars have been distributed to transactions as a division of “conditional commitments.” Wright said there was “reasonable concern and suspicion” about overeating after the election and vowed to scrub some deals.
In 2023, the Biden Administration made subtle changes to liquefied disease regulations, cutting strings and traditionally loan-related regulations. So, according to Trump officials, the office cuts the deal after the election on a more favorable clause than taxpayers, and in some cases made the same “conditional commitment” as the loan.
According to the current Ministry of Energy, these changes also moved the currency, and later governments could have cut the “obligation” island into “obligation” islands, making the transaction harder to cancel.
“Essentially, they make the loan program office operate like a cemetery energy venture capital fund,” a Trump official told RCI. “It's all tied to the religious enthusiasm associated with any green energy project in previous administrations, with the goal not to repay the government, but to promote a 'green new deal'. Transparency
The $93 billion review represents a separate “green bank” deal with the smaller Biden administration that the Department of Energy has cancelled.
Last month, the government accounting office said the department had no plans to “issued loans and guarantees before billions of dollars of new funds expired.”
As part of the review, Wright released policy guidelines in May, which he said provided more protection for taxpayers. Now, the department may require more information about the loan recipient and applicant, such as “the financial status of the project, project and engineering viability, market conditions, compliance with the award terms and conditions, and compliance with legal requirements, including legal requirements related to national security”.
The Ministry refused to provide the terms of a specific agreement, again citing ongoing review.
Trump administration officials claim that business plans for many of these deals are clues, the term essentially abandoned and can be described in the words of an official from a Biden EPA official because “the gold bars were thrown away,” “the Titanic was thrown away as Trump’s insurance policy.”
Despite these dubious results and the so-called taxpayer protections that accompany the deal, Trump administration officials say they remain committed to liquefaction disease.
The office plays an important role in achieving energy policy goals, including nuclear projects, strengthening the country's power grid and limiting U.S. reliance on key minerals and elements in China's supply chain.
“It seems like you walked away and the kids threw a boog in the house,” an official told the RCI.
“You might need some new furniture and stuff, but it's still a really nice home. The office may be a key resource for the country's manufacturing base and our goal is not to end the LPO, but to improve it.”
Reading Breaks in RealClear Investigation
