The Biden administration is doing its dangedest to Trump-proof as many of their climate cult partners in crime as they can. Or at least ensure they have healthy parting gifts before the money spigot is shut off for good by the incoming president and his new EPA head.

There are billions still sitting unspent in the oversized, loosely defined coffers reserved for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). What isn't already on its way out the door is being urged for immediate dispersion by progressives and Democrats. 

They want every last blue cent gone before Trump takes over and are making no bones about it.

Biden Administration Goes on ‘Dangerous and Destructive’ Climate Spending Spree Ahead of Trump Inauguration

As the clock ticks down toward President-elect Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Congressional Democrats are urging President Biden to “move expeditiously” to disburse billions of unspent dollars for climate funding authorized in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. 

In a letter sent to the president on Wednesday, Senator Markey, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and a slew of fellow Democratic lawmakers said that while the Inflation Reduction Act has already led to tens of billions of dollars in investments, there “are so many more good projects, good jobs, and good savings to unleash.” 

That last line is a howler. There hasn't been a single dollar saved by any of this renewable chicanery.

...The letter comes as the Biden administration has already awarded more than $100 billion in climate and clean energy grants through the Inflation Reduction Act. The administration is racing to spend billions more before it hands over the keys to the Trump administration.

And 'racing' to spend billions more on these green fever dream boondoggles is unconscionable, especially when the American people voted pretty decisively against it.

It's quite obvious where voters' priorities are, and they are not EV subsidies, windmills, or another solar snafu.

Really deliver a bang for the ginormous bucks, don't they?

Project Veritas had also been watching the feeding frenzy over at the Environmental Protection Agency as a Trump win became ever more possible and then seemed probable.

Both the tangible sense of inevitability and the entitled smugness of evading most anticipated clawback efforts were captured by their hidden cameras when they zeroed in on an EPA advisor. Among other tidbits, the young man shared was that the EPA was 'shoveling gold bars' to outfits like NGOs and tribes because the feds can't recoup monies from them with the same ease as if it had been given to state agencies. So they were basically hiding assets willy-nilly in unrecoverable non-profit locations to foil any attempt by a Trump EPA to pull them back.

BREAKING: @EPA Advisor Admits ‘Insurance Policy’ Against Trump is Funneling Billions to Climate Organizations, “We’re Throwing Gold Bars off the Titanic”

“It was an insurance policy against Trump winning.”

“Get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump… pic.twitter.com/eaAihuNvAh

— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) December 3, 2024

Does that make you grind your teeth, or what?

...It’s a turbulent time at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a current staffer, with morale at an all-time low. As President-Elect Trump readies to take office, gloomy EPA employees are scrambling to distribute funding for their favored climate change initiatives. Brent Efron, a special advisor implementing Biden’s climate agenda, told Project Veritas the agency is frantically shoveling billions in grants to nonprofits, making sure that the Biden administration’s climate projects stay afloat — no matter who’s in charge.

It doesn't hurt that these smug little bureaucrats slide into schweet gigs when they get booted out of their government jobs, as these non-profits remember who greased their skids.

...Efron predicts that the Trump administration will swiftly issue an order to block all grants, with Congress potentially trying to claw back the EPA's funding. Anticipating this, he reveals that the EPA has been working to funnel money to aligned nonprofits capable of implementing climate change policies at the local level, viewing it as an "insurance policy" against the upcoming Trump presidency.

“We gave them [nonprofits] the money because… it was an insurance policy against Trump winning. Because they aren’t [a government agency], they’re safer from Republicans taking the money away.”

Efron openly admits how the EPA uses nonprofits as a political buffer against Republican administrations—and reveals how he could later reap personal rewards with a cushy job at one of the nonprofits he helped fund during his tenure.

They're taking Trump at his word and taking taxpayers - and voters - to the cleaners.

...The spending spree comes as Trump has promised to “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam,” Trump told the Economic Club of New York during remarks given in September. 

What makes this unconscionable waste even absolutely more maddening is the fact that the cultists are 'racing' ahead as the renewable industry pulls back and as expanding technology, specifically AI data centers, is projected to gobble power at an exponential rate.

For example, Shell is stepping away from new offshore wind projects. At one time they were a major player.

No longer.

Shell (SHEL.L), opens new tab is stepping back from new offshore wind investments and is splitting its power division following an extensive review of the business that was once seen as a key driver of the company's energy transition strategy.

The changes are part of a company-wide review launched in 2023 aimed at reducing costs as CEO Wael Sawan focuses on activities with the highest returns. In many cases that has meant reducing spending on low-carbon and renewable businesses and increasing the focus on oil, gas and biofuels.

“While we will not lead new offshore wind developments, we remain interested in offtakes where commercial terms are acceptable and are cautiously open to equity positions, if there is a compelling investment case,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

The demand for data centers and the enormous energy demands of such data centers have former NetZero and CO2 reduction cheerleaders gingerly backing away from demonizing fossil fuels for the foreseeable future and admitting it publicly.

Why?

Because there's no way that enough renewables are coming online to come close to meeting the needs of the data centers they have planned. 

They're going to need natgas and nuclear, as much as it's paining them to admit it. 

But admit it, they are (and thanks to my girlfriend TurnMDRed for the heads up).

...The electricity consumption of data centers has exploded along with their increasingly critical role in the economy in the past 10 years, housing servers that power the applications businesses and consumers rely on for daily tasks.

Now, with the advent of artificial intelligence, data centers are growing so large that finding enough power to drive them and enough suitable land to house them will become increasingly difficult, the developers say. The facilities could increasingly demand a gigawatt or more of power — one billion watts — or about twice the residential electricity consumption of the Pittsburgh area last year.

Technology companies are in a “race of a lifetime to global dominance” in artificial intelligence, said Ali Fenn, president of Lancium, a company that secures land and power for data centers in Texas. “It’s frankly about national security and economic security,” she said. “They’re going to keep spending” because there’s no more profitable place to deploy capital.

Renewable energy alone won’t be sufficient to meet their power needs. Natural gas will have to play a role, developers say, which will slow progress toward meeting carbon dioxide emissions targets.

Meanwhile, billions are being shoveled out the door into the NGO ether.

But there are signs nature may catch a break anyway, here and there. 

The Trump Effect, you know...

TotalEnergies has reportedly paused development of the Attentive Energy wind farm it planned to build off the coast of New York and New Jersey, CEO Patrick Pouyanne said Tuesday at an energy industry conference in London.

“I have decided to put the project on pause,” TotalEnergies’ CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at the Energy Intelligence Forum, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters.

The decision is one of the first tangible signs of a halt in investment in renewable power sources due to the anticipated policies of the incoming Trump administration. Trump has vowed to stop offshore wind energy development “on day one” of his next term starting in January 2025.

TotalEnergies could revive the project if a more environmentally friendly US president takes office in the future, Pouyanne said. The company won the rights to develop the area in a 2022 auction.

...can be pretty powerful stuff.

Nature is healing. pic.twitter.com/c2VL6u5v2Q

— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) November 26, 2024