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Trump is kinda sorta trying to unilaterally kill IRA and the infrastructure act

Huh:

Sec. 7. Terminating the Green New Deal. (a) All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program.

I guess we're all going to get tired of asking this eventually, but is this legal? Both of these laws were passed by Congress and Trump can't just unilaterally annul them. Nor is he allowed to impound the funds, if that's what he's thinking. If he wants to kill IRA and the infrastructure act, he's going to have to get Congress to do it.

But can he "pause" disbursement? Good question. I'm not sure how flexible the law is. It's certainly true that the executive has a certain amount of leeway in planning and implementation, but not if the goal is to frustrate Congress's intent—and that sure seems to be the case here.

As for the charging stations, the bulk of that money has already been allocated to the states and Trump can't claw it back. So the practical effect of this is pretty much nil for the near future.

30 thoughts on “Trump is kinda sorta trying to unilaterally kill IRA and the infrastructure act

  1. Jimm

    I'm unfamiliar with constitutional adjudication of executive orders, but whatever the equivalent of summary dismissal is.

  2. Art Eclectic

    This is my industry and everything has ground to halt today. No one knows what we can and can't do, how this impacts ongoing work, etc... Emergency meetings happening all over. We expected him to shut IRA down, but it's unclear if he can do it day one by EO.

    Even so, 85% of the money was hustled out the door by the DOE who was taking no chances. EPA also rapidly accelerated a bunch of things just in case. This planning started easily a year in advance of the election as a "just in case" because the wheels move slowly.

    IRA in California is launched and well underway, there are legal teams evaluating if anything can be clawed back (which seems unlikely, but better prepared than not).

    The big question everyone is asking is about how "disbursement" is defined.

  3. D_Ohrk_E1

    But can he "pause" disbursement?

    Isn't that the case of all federal spending allocations? For example, if the Pentagon doesn't pay out (disburse via contracts) its money by the end of the fiscal year, they've lost it.

    1. Art Eclectic

      That's one of the bigger questions. Many things have been allocated, can he stop disbursement out to the states? Once the funds have transferred are they safe with the states?

      You would think these would be easy answers, but with the Revenge Tour, The Felon has a grudge against a bunch of states that went Harris. CA chief among them.

      1. memyselfandi

        Why would a state that wants the one ever conceive of returning it. And no, impound control act makes it illegal to even delay spending one congress has appropriated.

  4. SeanT

    1, the Green New Deal is a right wing fever dream, so this is a political document not a policy one
    2, Yes. He can try.
    3, there is a shit ton of uncertainty out there and it likely depends on any number of things (do you have a signed contract with DOE? was the money simply committed, but no contract? etc)
    But he is for sure gonna try to redirect (can possibly redirect up to 10% of funds direct to a program) and clawback and just gum up the works (not approve workplans, pick apart budgets, etc) and there will be a wave of lawsuits, particularly over awards that have contracts in place between say the feds and a state or city.

      1. memyselfandi

        None with any influence. Biden, Pelosi the democrats in the senate all hated it and so it was never given the time of day during Biden's presdienc. That assumes you actually know what the green new deal is and not the delusions and outright lies spouted by Republicans.

      2. Crissa

        The Green New Deal isn't a thing which was implemented.

        That's the fever dream.

        And the details they think are in it?

        Also a fever dream.

        That there just so happens to be something of the same name doesn't have anything to do with their delusions.

    1. memyselfandi

      " pick apart budgets," Do you honestly think any of the garbage Trump's hiring will have the competence to do that in a legal fashion?

  5. NotCynicalEnough

    The ironic thing is that there is now an "Energy Emergency" and the first thing Trump wants to do is curtail funding for wind and solar power. I guess that is because they don't produce the right kind of energy.

  6. rick_jones

    We look to the Executive to act via Executive Order as an enlightened despot when it is for things we want that the Legislative won’t “give.” Of course the underlying authority on which that relies is still there when the Executive is merely a despot and starts doing things we do not want.

    1. Gary Goldberg

      How quickly we forget the Northern District of Texas and the Fifth Circuit courts. They’ll want to run the Aileen Cannon playbook since it worked so well.

  7. Andrew

    Without a time limit, this would be equivalent to a line item veto on spending. He could just pause disbursement for 4 years (or every year if required) for any program he doesn't like.

    1. memyselfandi

      There's a whole separate section of the impound control act forbidding delaying spending money appropriated by congress.

  8. n1cholas

    If the President does it, it's legal. The Supreme Court said so, and a Republican Congress sure as shit isn't going to tell their King no.

  9. rick_jones

    As for the charging stations, the bulk of that money has already been allocated to the states and Trump can't claw it back. So the practical effect of this is pretty much nil for the near future.

    So in another six months time we should see some fresh charts on these pages showing the aforementioned exponential growth in charging stations, yes?

  10. pjcamp1905

    He can do anything the Supreme Court will let him do. And I can see this court deciding that only Congress has standing here.

    I've had pizzas more supreme than this court.

  11. memyselfandi

    "I guess we're all going to get tired of asking this eventually, but is this legal?: No, it's a blatant violation of the impound control act. Paragraph 2 makes it illegal to even delay spending money appropriated by congress

    1. Art Eclectic

      That being the case, either this is all performance to placate the rubes while they focus on looting or they have an extremely high degree of confidence that SCOTUS is in the bag.

  12. jte21

    Isn't this essentially what he tried to do with the border wall the first time around? Congress hadn't actually allocated money for what he wanted, so he just ordered some money earmarked (iirc) for base housing renovations be redirected to building his white whale border wall. I think he wasn't allowed to do this, but the Pentagon let him do it anyway. Laws, schmaws.

  13. Srho

    Without NEVI charging corridors, Cybertrucks are useless bricks (...more so). Does, uh, Elon have anything to say about this?

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