40% of Biden-Harris admin's massive green infrastructure spending plans on hold due to inflation, decline in demand for EVs

Fully 40 percent of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' massive green infrastructure spending plans aren’t going forward, according to the Financial Times. Some are on hold permanently while others are on indefinite pauses. 

The Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act, combined with the Chips and Science Act, dispensed more than $400 billion in spending, loans and tax credits to promote “green” energy projects like the semiconductor supply chain. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to launch the bill into law.

Of all the mega projects costing more than than $100 million, $84 billion of the total spending is either delayed from months to years or effectively canceled.

The Inflation Reduction Act alone, a 755-page, $739 billion spending plan passed in August 2022 that the Biden-Harris administration claimed would fight climate change, passed along party lines. The bill divided the Senate by party affiliation and Vice President Kamala Harris has touted her role as tie-breaker for that legislation.

But the proposed war on climate change is not moving ahead as planned. Companies told the Financial Times that a poor stock market, sputtering demand for green energy projects—especially electric vehicles (EVs)—and the potential reelection of Donald Trump to the presidency has upended the projects.

The delays suggest that Biden’s optimistic pledge of a new green economy is faltering and will likely not deliver the high-paying jobs that he promised. As the Financial Times noted, this failure could impact Harris’ ability to sell futher environmental plans should she gain a term in the White House.

Nonetheless, Alex Jacquez, special assistant to the president for economic development and industrial strategy, told the Financial Times that the  Biden-Harris administration has had “unmitigated new success” in boosting construction and manufacturing.

A lot of the delays and cancellations of programs haven’t even been announced yet. Facilities have even been build with the anticipation of hiring workers but are not even being used, the FT reported. 

Biden tasked Harris with responsibility for delivering on the US government’s billion-dollar investment to secure thousands of electric buses for hundreds of American school districts. Harris has been jubilant about this initiative, though it has been a failure. 

After spending billions of dollars, the program managed to only produce 60 school buses while many school districts have declined to partake at all due to the difficulty of maintaining the buses. That experience is typical of EVs in general for the American population.

Ford has delayed the introduction of the electric truck after cutting back on EV-150s because of low consumer demand. That might have something to do with the inconvenience of accessing a site to recharge your vehicle. Consumers find it difficult to locate a charging station, and once they find one, they are often inoperable. EV charging stations in Chicago turned into car graveyards when temperature plummeted last January.