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Brian Lehrer: It is the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On President Biden's list of things to do before election day, spend a trillion dollars. That's the conclusion of a major new package of stories from Politico that they describe as Biden's race to Trump-proof his legacy. See, the money has already been approved by Congress in four major areas, infrastructure, climate, competing with China for high-tech job creation, and what's left of the Pandemic Relief Act. The fear is that Trump might just decide not to spend the money even if it's there and signed into law. Let's discuss.

With us now, two of the reporters on this story, Jessie Blaeser, data reporter at Politico, who's got some of these very big numbers, and Ben Storrow, reporter at Politico's E&E News, that's Energy and Environment News. It's an area on his beat. It's that area on his beat where a lot of this lives. Jessie and Ben, thanks for coming on. Welcome to WNYC.

Jessie Blaeser: Thank you so much for having us, Brian. Glad to be here.

Ben Storrow: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, I think we're going to have to get your line a little stronger. We'll start with Jessie. You've got a top-line number, Jessie, of $1.6 trillion in money approved by Congress. That's about a trillion in direct spending and the other half a trillion on targeted tax breaks. How would you start to describe what those eye-popping and mind-numbing numbers are for?

Jessie Blaeser: Great question. A couple of things to know about all of those numbers. There's, like you mentioned, four main areas and four main laws that are contributing to that total sum. Like you mentioned, a lot of that is wrapped up in tax credits, which is a whole other area of discussion about how to track how those are used. What we did in this analysis was look at the climate and infrastructure investments under that pandemic relief bill, the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS. All these big words that people, I think, have heard float around for a while and compiled the direct appropriations for that in order to say how much has been spent so far.

What we found was for at least those portions of the American Rescue Plan and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that we looked at, only about $125 billion has been spent on the ground. That doesn't fully capture all of the money that's been awarded or obligated to date or even the amount of money that's been announced. When it comes to the money that's been spent on the ground, it's relatively little compared to the vast array of money that's been appropriated for these purposes. We're still waiting to better understand those numbers in the full extent of them.

Brian Lehrer: For most of us in our personal lives, if we have money budgeted that's available to be spent, it's going to be spent. Right?

Jessie Blaeser: Right.

Brian Lehrer: Are there certain major barriers to spending this federal government money even though it's been allocated?

Jessie Blaeser: That's a great question. Just as you're budgeting at home, for the federal government it takes time too to figure out exactly how you want to spend the money and make sure that you do it right. I think that was one of the big conclusions of this investigation that we did, was that the federal government takes a lot of time to find the right recipient for a certain pot of money to do a certain task. They often will come out with these announcements that say, "We, the department of whatever, are going to give this amount of money to this recipient."

Then that's the last you hear about it from a publicity standpoint. Really after that, there's a ton of negotiations that have to take place. The award itself has to get finalized, and then once both the recipient and the federal government sign on the dotted line, so to speak, then that recipient, which could be a state government, could be a local transit agency, it could be a local nonprofit, that's when that recipient is able to start spending the money and really moving and working towards those goals. The honest answer is,it takes time to work through the bureaucracy of the process.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help us and Politico report this story. Have you seen tangible signs of the $1.6 trillion in federal spending and tax credits that have been authorized during the Biden administration under these four laws, the CHIPS Act, inflation Reduction Act, the Infrastructure Law, or the American Rescue Plan passed at the height of the pandemic? Let us know if you have a job because of any of these, or if your job does any work related to these, or if you've seen something in your neighborhood or city or town or in your industry related to any of these. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

This could be on semiconductor manufacturing. Anybody related to that, seeing money from the CHIPS Act affecting your life, your town, your business on greening the economy from the Inflation Reduction Act or your own personal house or vehicle, for example, or on roads and bridges or other infrastructure or on Pandemic Relief that has helped you in your community. What have you seen? 212-433-WNYC. Is it visible? Do you have anything to report, or if nothing to report? If nobody calls, maybe those crickets speak very loudly about what it's like to spend that money or get political credit for it in the election year, which is part of this story from Ben Starrow and Jessie Blaeser from Politico. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692 call or text.

Ben, I think we have you back on a better line now. Your beat is energy in the environment, and I see half a trillion dollars in tax credits are mostly for things like electric vehicles, home energy updates, and clean energy manufacturing. Those are all from the Inflation Reduction Act, which is largely the climate protection law, correct?

Ben Storrow: Yes. Those are all elements of the IRA. It's important to note that those things, these tax credits, they go beyond the industries that we maybe traditionally think about in terms of tax credits for EVs or wind and solar. They also go to some emerging climate technologies like green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel and things like that.

Brian Lehrer: You have a stat that of $145 billion indirect climate-related spending allocated by Congress, only about $60 billion, that's less than half, has been spent. Do you know what it is largely being spent on?

Ben Storrow: We document this in the story. As it relates to the IRA, it is difficult at this point in time to say what the money from that law is actually being spent on. There are two reasons for that. First, there's the tax credit part, which is we have to see which companies actually claim these tax credits when they file their taxes. The second part of it is we're starting just now to see the federal agencies who got direct spending, like EPA start to roll out the programs that they've developed under the IRA. A big one would be EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Program. They just announced $20 billion in awards under that law.

You have to forgive me if Jessie may have already explained this while I was having my technical difficulties, but there's a difference between the funding being awarded and the funding actually being spent. There's a bunch of bureaucratic hurdles that have to go through.

Brian Lehrer: Well, Jessie talked a little bit about that, but talk about it more specifically in the areas of energy in the environment.

Jessie Blaeser: You said a second ago, Brian, that there's $60 billion that's been spent under IRA, I would just amend that to say that it's $60 billion that's been announced, which is significant. That represents of that $145 roughly billion in direct spending, that about $60 billion is headed towards a recipient in some capacity. That announcement represents a ton of work on the federal government's part. They have to figure out who is going to be receiving that money, but that is still one step in the process. They still have to finalize that money.

A lot of it will still be wrapped up in negotiations for at least weeks, if not months. Then once it's finalized, the spending on the ground can actually begin. Within that $60 billion, a lower portion has actually been spent on the ground, but we can't say at this moment how much of it has been spent.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, on your energy and the environment beat, would you say those are among the things Trump would be most likely to cancel because they disadvantaged the fossil fuels industry that he's become such a champion for?

Ben Storrow: That's a good question, Brian. The things that we can say on that are these, we spoke to some people in the Trump energy orbit, and what they said were any grants or loans that have not been finalized at the point he would take office would probably be paused and reviewed and maybe canceled. I guess that's the big million-dollar question here because legally speaking, unless Congress changes the law, this money has to be spent. He could slow-walk it, he could maybe tweak some of the rules to make them more advantageous to fossil fuels, but at least in principle, he shouldn't be able to just cut the money unless he gets help from Congress.

Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "I bought an EV, electric vehicle, in 2023 and got a big tax break for it. The charging infrastructure still leaves much to be desired, important for me as I park on the street. I don't have my own charger, but I'm hoping it will improve," writes Anna in Brooklyn. Anna giving credit at least for the big tax break for her EV. Here's Lisa in the East Village with something else to report. Hi, Lisa. You're on WNYC.

Lisa: Hey, Brian. How are you doing?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Lisa: I took a road trip last fall. I drove out to California via Interstate 80 and back via Interstate 40. I can tell you that a good one-third of the roads were under construction with very large signs up, proclaiming that this was money from the the Biden infrastructure bill that was widening and bettering the roads that people were driving. Everybody got to see exactly where this money had come from. It was great.

Brian Lehrer: Did it say Biden or Federal Highway funds or anything like that that was visible to your eye?

Lisa: Yes. It basically mentioned President Biden and said the Infrastructure Act, they were the infrastructure bill. I can't remember the exact wording, but people were left in no doubt that that was why these roads were being worked on.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the only question now is, is that going to make voters happier with Biden or, oh, he is causing all these traffic jams while they work on my highway? Lisa, thank you very much. Here's another one from another of those bills. It's interesting. By the way, Jessie and Ben, our lines did fill up with people mostly reporting signs of these bills at work. Allison in North Carolina, you're on WNYC. Hi, Allison.

Allison: Hi. I work in a telecom industry. As you know, there's been a huge amount of money allocated to broadband expansion, specifically fiber rising the nation. The federal government has subcontracted the process of allocating that money to the states. Under the ARPA funds, a lot of them have been awarded, but the process of deploying fiber under those grants is very, very slow because each state has taken a different approach. They're highly bureaucratic, and so even awards that were granted in 2022 still don't have a single fiber project completed, many of them.

Then, of course, you have the IIJA, which has $42 billion dedicated towards broadband expansion. That money's not going to be awarded until 2025. There is a lot of money, but it's been very slow to actually make its way to people in enhancing fiber networks across the nation.

Brian Lehrer: Do you attribute any of that to state-level politics? If these are grants that, if I'm understanding you correctly, the federal government provides the money for, but then they go to the states and the state has to distribute them to particular projects, are there debates at the state level, like even whether to spend the money?

Allison: Not really. What I would say is mostly the problem is that the states were not well set up to distribute and oversee the execution of these grants. They didn't have the programs, they didn't have the rules, they didn't have the personnel. As I said, each state is taking a different approach. If you're a national provider, you're having to adjust to varying rules. Then, of course, they're following what the federal government has set forth as the overarching umbrella guidance for administration of these funds, and that is highly bureaucratic.

Even things like local permitting can be a real problem. The state may be behind a project and bringing fiber and better internet connectivity, but then when you get to the Department of Highways in the state or the local municipality, they still want to follow the same rules that they've had forever without any sense of urgency in order to get this out to people.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting, Allison. Thanks for all that context. Jessie, it reminds me that Biden likes to talk about all these Republican members of Congress who voted against the Inflation Reduction Act for the most part, some against the infrastructure bill, and then go out and tout to their constituents, "Hey, look how much money we got from the federal government that we're spending in your interest." That's some of the politics of it that he has to try to communicate, right?

Jessie Blaeser: Yes, 100%. I think with that last caller, broadband is a great example of where there are communities that need that service and getting the money to create that is a big deal and something that local politicians want to be able to tout. I think when it comes to where the money is going overall when we look at a state-by-state basis, the private investments that we're seeing, which again, are more so in the announcement stage of a company will say, "We're going to build a $300 billion facility in this county, in this state," or something like that. Then you obviously have to see it come to pass.

A lot of those announcements specifically inspired by the IRA we're seeing in southern states, particularly Georgia and South Carolina. You're totally right, it is very interesting to see when representatives and senators are very glad to see those investments come into their area, yet they don't necessarily support the policy that's in the Inflation Reduction Act and may not have voted for it at all.

Brian Lehrer: Big spending in those big swing states, Georgia and North Carolina. Does the federal law on paper direct money to swing states like that?

Jessie Blaeser: No. It directs money to states for sure, but it doesn't directly say this money is going to go to this list of states, which also happens to be swing states or anything like that. We've looked at where the money has been distributed. There's not a clear pattern in terms of, oh, these states are far outliers in terms of where money has been deployed as far as the Federal Government's awards go, those obligations that they're responsible for. There aren't any giant outliers that we're seeing at the moment, but it's certainly something that we're keeping our eye on.

Brian Lehrer: Ben, here's one on your energy in the environment beat, a text. A listener writes, "I'm a corporate lawyer working mostly on a volunteer basis with startups, innovators, and entrepreneurs in the green energy cleantech field. Trying to help these companies figure out how to get grants loans, tax credits, et cetera, has been difficult because the agencies have taken so long to roll out the regulations and the programs. There's a lot of interest in decarbonizing the economy." Really interesting anecdote there about where the pipeline is getting clogged.

Ben Storrow: I think that really tracks with what we've heard from a lot of people. There is a tremendous amount of interest in everything from the tax credits to the grants, to the loan programs, but it's a process. One of the things that we wrote about in the story was these DOE grants for advanced battery manufacturing, $2.8 billion for 20 projects. Even some companies that have had the money officially obligated, they haven't actually seen those dollars yet because of things like environmental permitting not being done on time.

Brian Lehrer: Jessie, another interesting number to me from your data-- Listeners if you're just joining us, Ben Storrow is an energy environment reporter for Politico. Jessie Blaeser is a data reporter, so she's the numbers cruncher. Another interesting number to me from your data is that Congress authorized $54 billion in spending for the CHIPS Act. That's money, about half of it being announced already to be going to semiconductor manufacturers, but not out the door. Can you remind people a little bit about the CHIPS Act and what so much tax money $54 billion is supposed to buy?

Jessie Blaeser: It's funny because $54 billion is obviously not a small amount of money, but in comparison to everything else here, it hides in the background a little bit. For the vast majority of that CHIPS money, it's a $54 or so billion package. $50 billion of that is going to the Department of Commerce, specifically for advanced manufacturing for semiconductors or CHIPS, which are things that can go on your smartphones, EVs, things like that. It's an industry that the intention of the law is to bring it more to the United States rather than relying on foreign resources and to improve the domestic supply chain in order to make those CHIPS here.

Again, the vast majority of that $54 billion is coming from the Department of Commerce. That department has announced up to $29 billion in something called PMTs. They're basically preliminary contracts that are still under negotiation, largely with private companies, to begin that building of the supply chain domestically. It's not that commerce hasn't moved at all on that money, it's just that it's still caught up in this step-by-step process of, "Okay, we've selected the recipient. We know about how much we would like to give them in the form of their federal grant." Then there's a negotiation that still has to take place to make sure that everybody is okay with the terms, and then you move forward with spending.

CHIPS money, in particular, also comes with certain checkpoints to make sure that the terms of the contract are being met. We don't necessarily expect that money to function quickly because it wasn't intended to go out at an unreasonable pace. We're seeing those preliminary announcements come, but when it comes to the actual obligations, the actual awards that have gone through, that's largely outside of the Department of Commerce. I think it was less than $700 million that's been obligated. Again, not a small amount of money, but in comparison to the $54 billion package, small in those terms.

Brian Lehrer: Jessie, do you think it would be safe to assume that Trump would not cancel that spending very much because creating jobs in tech and competing with China are things he supports?

Jessie Blaeser: It's a great question. I think it's a question we share, too. As with everything, in the event of a turnover in administration, we'll have to see what happens. I don't believe that former President Trump has criticized CHIPS as heavily as he has with the Inflation Reduction Act, especially the tax credits, for example. We'll have to see. I think it definitely serves interests that he's expressed in the past, but it's expensive, and we'll see what happens.

Brian Lehrer: Kylie in Northern Virginia, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kylie.

Kylie: Hi, Brian. I'm glad you're having this conversation. I wanted to make a contribution by way of a little anecdote. When I was growing up in New Jersey, my friends and I told my dad one day, "We're going to Green Acres Park." My father's like, "What? Green Acres Park?" The sign from the Federal Government was so big. The money from that park came from the Green Acres, whatever. The sign was so big that we thought that park was called Green Acres Park. Obviously, it wasn't. It was just the allocation of the money. My question is, how are we supposed to know where this money has been sent? How is the Biden administration really letting people know this is where this money went? I got for the highways, but for other things, how would we know how the money was spent? I would love to say my life was impacted, but I have no idea.

Brian Lehrer: That's a great question. Jessie, can you take that? I know you have to go in a couple of minutes. We'll continue with Ben, but why don't you take this if you can?

Jessie Blaeser: Yes. That's a great question. It's funny because there are guidelines for the types of signs that different agencies put out for things, investments from the infrastructure law in particular. It's funny that the highway signs are out, but maybe not the park signs. I think there's a couple of resources that you could use, is really my best answer. Other than if you're not encountering it physically by way of a sign when you go to your local park or something, because for the record, there is money for very minute-scale projects, like a pedestrian bridge at a park or improving a sidewalk. Things like that are part of this, and it can be hard to detect where those improvements are happening and whether or not the dollars to support that has come from the federal level.

A couple of websites that I would suggest. First, the federal government's website or the White House's website is something called invest.gov, where you can go in and see all of the announced projects across at least the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Recently, they started tracking those CHIPS announcements, too. They have a map where you can zoom into your state, and you can click on a couple of select projects just to get an idea of where things are happening.

It's important to know that a lot of those, at least on the physical map that you see, some of them are still going to be in the announcement stage. Even if you see something right where you live, it doesn't necessarily mean that that project has already gotten to the point where you might notice it in your daily life, but you could at least know what's coming. Then the second--

Brian Lehrer: [unintelligible 00:24:08] Go ahead.

Jessie Blaeser: Oh, go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: No, you go.

Jessie Blaeser: I was just going to say the second resource that I would recommend is the Center for American Progress also has a tracker where you can-- it's quite easy to go in and put in your county or your zip code, and you can see a whole list of projects that are either ongoing, or coming to your area across multiple different appropriations packages. That would be really useful, too.

Brian Lehrer: I guess the difference is having to go to a website to find out that the Biden administration has done something you might like and having it appear before your eyes as you're driving down a highway.

Jessie Blaeser: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: If you have to go to a website to look for it, maybe they're not getting the political message out as well as they can. Jessie, real quick before you go, I see you cite $45 billion yet to be spent from the American Rescue Plan. That's the pandemic-related law passed in 2021. What are some of the things that money is supposed to be for that's still unspent? Because a lot of people may think, "Well, wait, the pandemic's over. If they didn't spend that money already, why didn't they, or do we need it anymore?"

Jessie Blaeser: Actually, the American Rescue Plan-- Again, like I mentioned at the top, we only tracked a small slice of that package because it's huge. That was primarily pandemic relief right after Biden came into office. That was nearly a trillion-dollar bill. We only looked at actually $45 billion of it, which was the portion of it that directly relates to infrastructure, climate, and energy that we could track. Of that $45 billion, a good portion of that has actually been spent. It's $45 billion in appropriations. Then the spending comes down to-- I think it's about $37 billion or so. That money is pretty well off the ground. What's been obligated or awarded from those federal agencies has been spent by the recipients.

I would actually say the American Rescue Plan, for the portions that we tracked, is really more or less a model, I think, of what everybody is aiming for, of you have awards nearly reaching the full amount of appropriations, and you have the spending nearly reaching the full amount of those awards, which, again, the spending is the part that happens on the ground by the recipient, whereas the awards happen from the federal agencies. American Rescue Plan is actually a pretty good example of things moving along, but it's also the oldest of all of the laws that we looked at here.

Brian Lehrer: Jessie Blaeser, data reporter at Politico. Keep crunching those numbers, Jessie. Thanks for coming on today.

Jessie Blaeser: Thanks so much for having me, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue with Ben Storrow right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Ben Storrow for a few more minutes, reporter at Politico's E&E News, that's Energy and Environment News, on this package of articles that Politico has that tells us on President Biden's list of things to do before the election day is spend $3.5 trillion. We should all have such problems. The point being, if you're just joining us, it's Biden's race to Trump-proof his legacy, as Politico describes it. This is money that's already been approved by Congress in four major areas, infrastructure, climate, competing with China for high-tech job creation, and what's left of the Pandemic Relief Acts.

The fear is that Trump might decide not to spend the money, even where it's there and signed into law. Politically, the fear is that people may not be aware of all this money that's ultimately going to benefit their communities in so many cases because a lot of it is having trouble going out the door. Let's take another caller with a story about that. Jeff in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff: Hi, Brian. I want to share some downsides of the situation. This is about installing solar in my home. I installed solar in a previous home eight years ago and just installed solar in a new home, and the differences are interesting to contrast. First, about the cost of the system. With all the talk we hear about how the cost of solar is going down, I calculated that the cost per installed watt is exactly the same as it was eight years ago. That's the first issue. I blame the industry for that, not the administration.

The second is that when I installed my first system, I had something called net metering. Now, under the current tariff that the utilities pushed for, I have to pay an additional $25 a month service charge because I have solar, which equates to me needing to generate 1,500-kilowatt hours a year just to cover that cost. That means my total service charge per month is $50 a month, meaning I spend $600 a year, even if I don't use a single kilowatt hour of utility electricity.

The third change, which is really upsetting, is the technology that was allowed eight years ago allows me to disconnect from the grid if there's a grid outage and still be able to use power from my solar panels. The utility no longer allows that technology. Basically, if there's a blackout, I cannot use my solar unless I spend $20,000 for an Elon Musk battery. A bit frustrating, but it has nothing to do with the government. It has to do with the utilities and the private sector, which are cashing in.

If any of you listen to any media, you're inundated by advertisements from the solar industry saying, "Get solar, you'll save lots of money." Not really.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Ben, is this familiar to you?

Ben Storrow: Yes. There's a couple of things to say there. On the net metering side, this, in some ways, reflects a challenge that Biden has. Net metering is a state thing, so the rules surrounding net metering really vary quite widely from state to state, and depending on where that caller was calling in from, they could be quite different.

As we've seen more and more residential solar installed in recent years, and we're really actually starting to see a pretty incredible amount of solar installed in different states across the country, states have offered people less and less money in terms of net metering credits. On the cost, solar costs in general have been falling, but around the time of the pandemic, we did see some cost increases for the first time.

I'd have to go back and look, but it was at least a decade that solar costs actually went up because you have things like racking, which is made of steel, and steel prices went up. I think people are expecting that situation to reverse itself. We actually have essentially an oversupply of solar components in the market right now, which is a whole separate issue that involves whether the administration wants to impose tariffs on Chinese-made solar, but we'll leave that for another day.

Brian Lehrer: Here's another objection to the Inflation Reduction Act. This might be an example of some of the politics that Biden needs to get past if he's going to get all the credit that he hopes to get in the election. Listener writes, "I am not a corporate lawyer. I am the schlub who bailed out Wall Street, the insurance companies, the car companies. I even paid bonuses to investment bankers after their industry nearly tanked the entire world economy."

That, of course, is reference to the bailout after the financial crisis started over a decade ago. Then writer continues, "This IRA bill will be proven to be a boondoggle, which will make the few rich and leave the rest of us up a swollen due to climate change creek." Hear a lot of that?

Ben Storrow: There's an argument that you hear that the IRA has contributed to inflation, and that essentially by the government pumping so much money into the market, that it's actually undermined itself or undermined the goals the president has and made some of these technologies renewable and clean energy technologies more expensive than they would be otherwise. Certainly, that argument is out there. The degree to which it's true, I honestly can't say.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing before you go. On this notion that Biden is trying to Trump-proof his legacy because Trump may undo a lot of the spending even though Congress authorized it, your article mentions a 1974 law that seems to require the president to spend money for his agencies that Congress has allocated. Is the suggestion here that Trump might ignore that law? Were you the reporter on that piece of it?

Ben Storrow: My understanding with all of this is Richard Nixon back in the '70s basically tried to impound money that he didn't want to spend, and Congress said, "No, you can't do that." Trump has on the campaign trail been making more or less that argument, that he would go ahead and not spend this money. This is the thing with Donald Trump, the questions that relate to him. How far will he go, is the question, and we really can't say at this point in time.

Brian Lehrer: Ben Storrow, reporter at Politico's E&E News, that's Energy and Environment news. Thanks so much for joining us. Very interesting to watch all this as election day approaches, and as more of the money gets into the pipeline on all these four things, a trillion and a half dollars. Biden who set out to be the new FDR, as he himself described it. He wanted to spend a lot more, and a lot of it was thwarted, but there's still $1.6 trillion that has gotten allocated.

Of course, Republicans oppose a lot of that. They claim it increases the debt, and there's a lot of waste. Democrats say, "No, this is going to communities. This also helps the recovery from the pandemic in terms of the really good job numbers." That debate is engaged in the election year, and Biden is trying to get as much of this money out the door as possible before November the 9th. Thanks for joining us, Ben.

Ben Storrow: Thanks, Brian.

 

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