There’s such an avalanche of crazy coming out of the “transition” that it’s hard to keep up. But for right now I just want to focus on one small part of what’s going on. Let’s start with Oliver Milman at Mother Jones, Repealing Biden’s Climate Bills Won’t Kill Clean Energy, But It May Cripple US Manufacturing. Milman begins,

The United States’s blossoming emergence as a clean energy superpower could be stopped in its tracks by Donald Trump, further empowering Chinese leadership and forfeiting tens of billions of dollars of investment to other countries, according to a new report.

Trump’s promise to repeal major climate policies passed during Joe Biden’s presidency threatens to push $80 billion of investment to other countries and cost the US up to $50 billion in lost exports, the analysis found, surrendering ground to China and other emerging powers in the race to build electric cars, batteries, solar and wind energy for the world.   …

… Under Biden, the US legislated the Chips Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act, all aimed in varying degrees to deal with the climate crisis while also bolstering American manufacturing.

The IRA alone, with its major incentives for clean energy, is credited with helping create around 300,000 new jobs, with the vast majority of $150 billion in new manufacturing investment flowing to Republican-held districts.

See Where the Chips Act Money Has Gone at The Verge for more details into exactly where the new manufacturing investments have flowed so far. Back to Oliver Milman:

Trump, however, has called this spending wasteful and vowed to erase it. “I will immediately terminate the green new scam,” the president-elect said shortly before his election win. “That will be such an honor. The greatest scam in the history of any country.”

If Trump kills the program, this would not only erase the jobs that would be funded by the Chips Act. It would also keep American companies reliant on foreign sources for components, including microchips and batteries, that we could be making here. Basically, it would undercut domestic manufacturing on a massive scale and put the U.S. on the road to being one of those shithole countries Trump likes to complain about. Not to mention there are also national security issues regarding being able to provide our own microchips and batteries.

Politico reports that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo “is aiming to commit nearly every unspent dollar in its $50 billion microchip-subsidy program before President-elect Donald Trump takes over in January, an effort that would effectively cement a massive industrial legacy before the GOP can reverse course.”

The Chips money alone is a massive undertaking. Congress allocated $50 billion in subsidies for semiconductor manufacturing and R&D. So far only two companies have received binding awards from the Department of Commerce’s manufacturing program. To hit her target, Raimondo still needs to nail down contracts with Intel, Micron, Samsung and SK hynix — multibillion-dollar deals that have, at times, been rocky and required renegotiations.

Surely the heads of those companies know the offer will likely be off the table after Trump takes office. But just watch — as manufacturing plants open, Trump will take credit for them.