US Won’t Move Forward With Billions in Biden-Era Energy Loans
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright said his agency doesn’t plan to move forward with billions of dollars worth of Biden-era loans as the Trump administration reviews the department’s $400 billion-strong green bank.
Wright, speaking during a Bloomberg Television interview May 2, criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration for issuing billions of dollars in loans and grants between the time President Donald Trump was elected and inauguration day.
“We’ve got a lot of reasons to be worried and suspicious about that,” Wright said in response to a question about the department’s loan program. “Some of these loans will go forward — some of it, it’s too late to change course. A lot of them won’t go forward, but that’s a very careful review process that we’ve just put in place and just got a team to execute on.”
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The department recently started a review of its Loan Programs Office, which has financed nearly $70 billion in energy projects and made more than $41.2 billion in conditional commitments that haven’t been finalized. The latter include $1.46 billion to biofuel maker Gevo Inc. and $4.4 billion for a high-voltage transmission line project spanning Kansas to Missouri.
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The department offered nearly $23 billion total to several utilities, including subsidiaries of DTE Energy Co. and CMS Energy Corp., just days before Trump’s inauguration.
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Clawing back already closed loans — like the $6.6 billion financing to Rivian Automotive that was finalized just days before Biden left office — wouldn’t be easy, according to experts. But the Trump administration has explored legal options to cancel existing loans.
While the first Trump administration initially considered canceling the program, which made a $465 million loan to Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. in 2010, the department has said it intends to use it to finance coal projects and advanced nuclear reactors.
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“The goal of the Department of Energy is to improve our energy system, to make energy more affordable, reliable and secure,” Wright said. “Everything that serves that agenda we will carry through.”
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