The grant allocates $1.7 billion for realignment projects across eight states. Will the program continue in 2025?
The Biden administration on Thursday $1.7 billion in grants Eleven automobile factories will be converted to manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) and their parts.
Much of the funding comes from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), a climate change bill that also includes a consumer tax credit of up to $7,500 on the purchase of new EVs.
And most of the grant money will go to retrofit factories run by General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis. The biggest chunk, $500 million, will help GM convert its Lansing, Michigan, factory from making internal combustion engines to making electric vehicles. But the grant money is spread across eight states, and if completed as planned, it will create 2,900 auto jobs and protect another 15,000, the Department of Energy said.
The administration is desperate to secure such funds before the November presidential election. The Washington Post reported.Former President Donald Trump has vowed to abandon all climate-related industrial policies and those put in place during President Biden’s first term. Trump called the policies the “Green News Scam.” Recent discussions.
There’s a bit of uncertainty in the air! And that’s not necessarily good for investment plans or the economic growth this initiative is trying to induce. The leader of a free market think tank said: The New York Times a few weeks ago:
Alex Flint, executive director of the Alliance for Market Solutions, a conservative group that advocates for a carbon tax to combat climate change, also opposes the subsidies, but he said the tax credits create “hope that we’re catching up with China” in clean technologies, and eliminating them would make the U.S. look unreliable.
“Continually providing and suspending subsidies reduces their immediate value and their value for future U.S. policy,” Flint said.
In the past two years — since the IRA took effect — companies have announced $152 billion in private investments in domestic clean energy and EV manufacturing. Clean Investment MonitorA project by the Rhodium Group and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this relatively small subsidy will grow as U.S. EV sales continue to grow. Will it continue to grow in 2025?
