Conversation

A $6 billion federal initiative to cut carbon emissions from steel mills and cement plants
— and even whiskey distilleries and ice cream factories
— is at risk of being gutted under the second Trump administration, experts say. 

The Biden administration announced the
Industrial Demonstrations Program
last year as part of its broader effort to slash planet-warming pollution from the nation’s heavy industrial sectors.
The program supports U.S. manufacturers that are working to electrify and decarbonize
the giant boilers, furnaces, and factories that produce industrial materials and processed foods.

In March, the U.S. Department of Energy picked 33 projects in more than 20 states to receive tens or hundreds of millions of dollars apiece in cost-sharing grants.
The projects will deploy early-stage, commercial-scale technologies that ideally can be replicated and scaled up at industrial facilities nationwide.
To date, however, very little of that funding has actually been distributed or is “obligated,”
steps that would make it much harder to rescind.

Ten projects have entered into the early phases of award negotiations, and they’ve received a fraction of their total grant funding to begin initial planning work.
The other 23 projects are still in pre-award negotiations and haven’t inked formal agreements with the department.

Any money that isn’t committed could potentially be pulled back after President-elect Donald Trump takes office next January
— putting greater pressure on the Biden administration to advance negotiations with manufacturers in the coming weeks. 
“The program is vulnerable,” said Ryan Fitzpatrick, senior director of domestic policy for the climate and energy program at Third Way, a center-left think tank.
“We’re going to see the [Biden] DOE continuing to keep up a really brisk pace of announcements and awards,” he added.
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/clean-industry/bidens-6b-bid-to-clean-up-heavy-industry-at-risk-under-trump