Via Reason: Biden's Infrastructure Bills Leave a Legacy of Big Spending and Little Payoff

Via Reason: Biden's Infrastructure Bills Leave a Legacy of Big Spending and Little Payoff

Over the past four years, President Biden has flooded our economy with federal tax subsidies for green energy corporations and overloaded small businesses with overregulation. The Biden-Harris Green New Deal agenda has been stymied by its own party's bureaucratic red tape, yet taxpayers are still footing the bill for hundreds of billions in green tax subsidies with nothing to show for it.

Joe Lancaster with Reason News wrote in a recent piece that while the Biden-Harris Administration entered office making big promises, its efforts to implement its green energy agenda have been unimpressive and uninspiring.

Word on the Street:

Joe Lancaster, Via Reason:

• "When President Joe Biden vacates the White House later this month, talk will turn to his legacy: What did he accomplish in office? Which among his achievements will outlast him? Even though Biden came into office with ambitious promises, his scorecard looks unimpressive."
  
  
• "The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act apportioned more than $1 trillion to a wide variety of projects deemed "infrastructure," including $550 billion toward "'new' investments and programs." Among its line items, the law included $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle (E.V.) chargers across the country."
  
  
• "The rollout was uninspiring. Under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which controls $5 billion of the $7.5 billion total, only 183 chargers have come online at 44 stations across the country, more than three years after Biden signed the bill into law. (Under federal rules, each station funded by the law is required to have at least four charging ports.)"
  
  
• "In fairness, not all of the cash has been spent: The NEVI has only allocated $2.4 billion and awarded $520 million, as of press time. Still, it's a dispiriting result from an administration that came into office with big promises to 'build a national network of 500,000 charging stations.'"
  
  
• "Similarly, the 2021 infrastructure law included the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, with $42 billion to expand broadband internet access across the country. In his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Biden equated it with the New Deal, calling the broadband expansion 'not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.'"
  
  
• "But three years after its creation, the program has disbursed no money and supplied broadband to zero households. 'Thanks to a federal affordability requirement that telecommunications companies say is too tight, many states have sparred with Washington over their funding applications, delaying the rollout,' Politico wrote in September."
  
  
• "'States face a common issue - navigating the complex BEAD process,' Misty Giles, the director of Montana's Department of Administration, testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy & Technology in September 2024. Giles called the approval process 'akin to building a plane while flying it without having the necessary instructions to be successful.' She also said the government 'has provided either no guidance, guidance given too late, or guidance changing midstream, all with a lack of appreciation for state operations and costs and the needs of our telecommunication providers,' creating 'a chaotic implementation environment.'"
  
  
• "'The rules require states accepting the money to make sure providers plan for climate change, reach out to unionized workforces and hire locally,' Politico wrote about the broadband program. 'One vague but broad provision requires low-cost options and fast connections for 'middle class families' at 'reasonable prices'-an unclear description that many states have struggled to implement."
  
  
• "Similarly, the NEVI program is remarkably complicated, and the equipment necessary to build out that many chargers is in short supply-requiring representatives from every state and territory to compete over a finite amount of resources."
  
  
• "Meanwhile, as federal programs have struggled to meet government E.V. goals, the private sector has excelled. In the three years after Biden signed the infrastructure law, Tesla Motors more than doubled its public charging stations in the U.S., going from 29,281 chargers at 3,254 stations to 62,421 chargers at 6,706 stations. Ford Motor Co. announced last year that for any motorists buying new Ford E.V.s, the company would install a charger in their home for free."
  
  
• "While unlikely, it's certainly possible that with hindsight, Biden will have plenty to crow about. But when stacking up his list of accomplishments next to what the private sector has achieved in the same amount of time, there's no comparison. Private companies, largely without the benefit of taxpayer funds, outperform government grant programs at every turn."

The Bottom Line:

The Biden-Harris Administration's policies have obstructed U.S. energy independence, raised prices, and hurt financial mobility for low- and middle-income families by blocking access to affordable energy and imposing an additional $1.7 trillion in regulatory costs since taking office.

The Congressional Budget Office noted that President Biden's E.V. tax credits added an additional $492 billion to the deficit over the ten-year budget window.

The House Budget Committee is committed to leading this charge and restoring American-made energy to secure jobs, strengthen our economy, and solidify our position as a global leader.

More from the House Budget Committee:

Read some key moments from the House Budget Committee's hearing entitled "The Cost of the Biden-Harris Energy Crisis" HERE.

Read Chairman Arrington's remarks on the Biden-Harris failed energy agenda HERE.