As Donald Trump continues to name members of his cabinet and prepares to take office in less than two months, President Joe Biden and his administration are also actively working to guarantee that the incoming Trump team can’t destroy some of their biggest accomplishments and tarnish the legacy that Biden will be remembered for when history books are written in the coming decades.
The Financial Times reports that the Biden team is working overtime to spend billions of dollars that Congress has already approved to keep Trump from clawing back the money or allocating it to other projects.
One of those is the $39 billion allocated as financial incentives for semiconductor manufacturing plants throughout the U.S., which is part of the CHIPS and Science Act. That funding is expected to create over 115,000 manufacturing jobs in several states.
According to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, her agency is working overtime and weekends to spend CHIPS and Science Act funds as soon as possible since Republicans have hinted they may try to cancel the funding as soon as Trump takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025.
“The CHIPS team has announced preliminary agreements with two dozen companies for CHIPS awards, and over the next two months, plans to announce preliminary agreements for all $39 billion of that funding, and is well on its way towards securing final agreements for many of those entities [where] preliminary awards were announced,” a White House official revealed.
There’s also the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which Earthjustice has hailed as “the largest climate spending bill ever.” It contains $369 billion in clean energy subsidies that Trump has vowed to repeal, even though that may not be as easy as he thinks. Many Republican states are using those funds to start or upgrade clean energy programs and will be reluctant to let go of them.
And then there’s Ukraine.
Biden is trying to get some $7 billion in additional military assistance to Kiev as soon as possible, especially since Trump is known to be buddies with Russian President Vladimir Putin and will likely try to deny Ukraine any further U.S. aid once he takes office.
But perhaps Biden’s most lasting legacy will be on the federal courts, where the White House is urging Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to push through as many Biden nominees as he possibly can before Trump is sworn in.
A White Hosue official told the Financial Times, “We’ve been working with [Senate Democrats] very, very closely to get as many of the president’s nominees confirmed because he believes that he wants to leave a lasting impact on the judiciary.”
Granted, another four years of Trump as president will likely be chaotic and disastrous, but as he leaves office, President Biden hopes to minimize the damage his successor can do.
