By FATIMA HUSSEIN, MATTHEW DALY and COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Biden administration officials are working against the clock, doling out billions in grants and taking other steps to try to preserve at least part of the outgoing president’s legacy before President-elect Donald takes office Trump in January.

“Let’s make every day count,” President Joe Biden said in a speech to the nation last week following Vice President Kamala Harris. conceded defeat to Trump in the presidential race.

Trump pledged to cancel unspent funds in Biden’s landmark climate and health law And stop the development of clean energies projects.

“There’s only one administration at a time,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters at a news conference Thursday. “This is true now, and it will also be true after January 20. Our responsibility is to make good use of the funds that Congress authorized us and that we are responsible for appropriating and disbursing over the past three years.

But Trump will control much more than the purse strings in January. His administration may also propose new regulations to undo some of what the Biden administration has done in the rulemaking process.

Here are some of the actions the Biden administration is currently taking:

Remove infrastructure spending

Biden administration officials hope projects funded under the $1 trillion infrastructure law and $375 billion climate law will endure beyond Biden’s term and are working to ensure that money from historic measures continues to flow.

On Friday, Buttigieg announced more than $3.4 billion in grants for projects to improve passenger rail service, help U.S. ports, reduce highway deaths and support domestic manufacturing of construction materials. sustainable transportation.

“We are investing in better transportation systems that reach every corner of the country and in the workers who will make the materials and build the projects,” he said. “Communities will benefit from safer travel, cleaner air and stronger supply chains that we all rely on. »

Accelerate environmental goals

Announcements of major environmental grants and project approvals have accelerated in recent months in what White House officials describe as a “sprint toward the end” of Biden’s four-year term.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently established a national deadline for lead pipe removal and announced nearly $3 billion to help local water systems come into compliance. The agency also announced that oil and gas companies will for the first time have to pay a federal tax if they emit dangerous methane above certain levels.

The Department of Energy, meanwhile, announced a $544 million loan to a Michigan company to expand the manufacturing of high-quality silicon carbide wafers for electric vehicles. The loan is one of 28 deals totaling $37 billion awarded under a clean energy loan program that was revived and expanded under Biden.

“There is a new urgency to do everything. We’re seeing explosions of money coming out of the door,” said Melinda Pierce, legislative director of the Sierra Club. Biden and his allies “really want to finish the job they started.”

Aid to Ukraine

Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week that Biden wants to “expend the authority that Congress allocated and authorized before he leaves office.” So we’re going to work really hard to make sure that happens.

The Biden administration is expected to take $7.1 billion from weapons — $4.3 billion from the 2024 supplemental budget and $2.8 billion still on the savings books thanks to the recalculation of the value of weapons. systems sent by the Pentagon – Pentagon stockpiles in order to expend all of these weapons. these funds committed before Trump was sworn in.

There is also an additional $2.2 billion available to place weapon systems under long-term contracts. However, recent aid programs have been much smaller, on the order of $200 to $300 million each.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the funds were already obligated, which should make them more difficult to recover as the new administration would have to revisit the situation.

Pressure to quickly confirm judicial choices

Another priority of the White House is to obtain Senate confirmation of as many federal judges as possible ahead of Trump’s inauguration on January 20.

The Senate voted 51-44 this week to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge in northern Illinois. More than a dozen judicial candidates pending left the Senate Judiciary Committee; eight judicial nominations await committee votes and six await committee hearings.

Trump urged Republicans to oppose efforts to confirm judicial nominees. “No judges should be approved during this time because Democrats seek to impose their judges while Republicans fight for leadership,” he wrote on the social media site Congressional Republicans don’t choose their new leaders.

Student Loan Forgiveness

The Department of Education has rushed to finalize a new federal rule that would cancel student loans for people facing financial hardship. The proposal — one of Biden’s only student loan plans that hasn’t been halted by federal courts — is in a public comment period set to end Dec. 2.

After that, the department would have a narrow window to finalize the rule and begin implementing it, a process that typically takes months. Like Biden’s other efforts, it would almost certainly face a legal challenge.

Additionally, the Biden administration has the option to speed up student loan forgiveness for people who were already promised relief because they were deceived by their universities, said Aaron Ament, an official at the Department of Education Department of the Obama Administration and President of the National Student Legal Defense Network.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona could decide this and other cases rather than handing them over to the Trump administration, which is expected to be much more friendly to for-profit colleges. “It’s a no-brainer,” Ament said. “There are quite a few cases lying around on Cardona’s desk. It’s hard to imagine these elements remaining intact.”

Trump hasn’t said yet what he would do if the student loan was canceled. However, he and Republicans have criticized Biden’s efforts.

Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Dan Merica contributed to this report.

Originally published: November 15, 2024 at 4:52 a.m. PST