The Federal Government Is Spending Over $15 Billion To Push Electric Vehicles
Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) has released his annual Festivus Report, highlighting over $1 trillion in wasteful federal government spending.
This year’s report includes a $12 million pickleball court in Las Vegas, $10 billion in maintenance and rent for mostly empty federal buildings, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for censoring nonliberal media (including Reason). Unsurprisingly, the federal government also wasted billions of dollars on clean energy and climate change projects.
Paul’s Festivus Report identifies a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to “support a cabaret show on ice skates focused on climate change,” $3 million from the Department of State to fund “girl-centered climate action” in Brazil, and $20 million for the Department of Agriculture to “advance fertilizer use in Pakistan, Vietnam, Colombia, and Brazil.” The largest energy and climate spender was the Department of Energy, which used “$15.5 billion to push Americans toward electric vehicles they don’t want,” in Paul’s words.
The primary mechanism of the federal government’s electric vehicle (E.V.) push is the Loan Programs Office (LPO), which finances energy projects that would likely not receive funding from private institutions. Under the Biden administration, the program’s lending authority has grown from $17 billion in 2021 to more than $400 billion. Some of the projects that LPO has financed include $2.5 billion for lithium-ion battery production in Rust Belt states, $362 million to improve vehicle wiring for E.V.s and other cars, and up to $2 billion in conditional loans for battery recycling.
With the incoming Trump administration hinting at a potential clawback of these funds and $290 billion of the $400 billion set to expire in FY 2026, the LPO is quickly pushing projects out of the door. Funding for E.V.s in the last two months alone includes a conditional loan of up to $6.57 billion
Article from Reason.com
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