Trump tries to seize the power of the purse with ‘an illegal executive order’
Buried within one of the dozens of executive orders that President Donald Trump issued in his first days in office is a section titled “Terminating the Green New Deal.” As presidential directives go, this one initially seemed like a joke. The Green New Deal exists mostly in the dreams of climate activists; it has never been fully enacted into law.
The next line of Trump’s order, however, made clear he is quite serious: “All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.” The president is apparently using “the Green New Deal” as a shorthand for any federal spending on climate change. But the two laws he targets address much more than that: The $900 billion IRA not only funds clean-energy programs but also lowers prescription-drug prices, while the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law represents the biggest investment in roads, bridges, airports, and public transportation in decades. And the government has spent only a portion of each.
In one sentence, Trump appears to have cut off hundreds of billions of dollars in spending that Congress has already approved, torching Joe Biden’s two most significant legislative accomplishments. The order stunned even some Republicans, many of whom supported the infrastructure law and have taken credit for its investments.
And Trump didn’t stop there. Yesterday, the White House ordered a pause on all federal grants and loans—a move that could put on hold an additional tens of billions of dollars already approved by Congress, touching many corners of American life. Democrats and government watchdogs see the directives as an opening salvo in a fight over the separation of powers, launched by a president bent on defying Congress’s will. “It’s an illegal executive order, and it’s stealing,” Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, told me, referring to the order targeting the IRA and infrastructure law. [Continue reading…]