Biden unveils $20bn green energy spending spree he says will slash 44 million tons of carbon each year - but Republicans slam it as taxpayer-financed 'slush fund'

Eight groups will receive tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, the Biden White House announced today, in an effort help struggling Americans reduce their carbon output.

The $20 billion was awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday in the form of federal 'green bank' grants to eight community development banks and nonprofits for use in low income communities that lack the resources to modernize.

But Republicans in Congress blasted the funding as a taxpayer-financed 'slush fund' designed to support the Biden administration's 'special interest friends.'

The spending, these lawmakers argued, risks delivering billions of dollars to China which 'controls the components needed for renewable energy' all in service of an effort that they described as a 'radical rush-to-green agenda.'

Eight groups will receive tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, the Biden White House announced today, in an effort help struggling Americans reduce their carbon output. Vice President Kamala Harris travelled to Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday to unveil the funds (pictured)

Republicans in Congress blasted the funding as a 'slush fund' designed to support the Biden administration's 'special interest friends.' One recipient, Appalachian Community Capital, said it plans to use its $500 million grant to help 'coal-impacted communities succeed'

At least $14 billion of the $20 billion, according to the EPA, will be reserved for economically disadvantaged communities, including rural, urban and tribal areas, as well as so-called 'energy communities,' including towns with shuddered coal mines.

Nonprofit community bank Appalachian Community Capital, set to receive $500 million from the fund, said it plans to help 'coal-impacted communities succeed.'

The bank's president Donna Gambrell specified that the grant will go toward 'investment and technical assistance' with the Appalachian bank planning to fund 'workforce development,' meaning job training for a local post-coal economy.

Last month, West Virginia's governor vetoed a bipartisan bill from his statehouse that would have added 50 megawatts of solar power to the Appalachian state.

As framed by the Biden administration, these tens of billions in grants would go toward low-cost loans issued by the selected nonprofit banks to help jump-start local environmentally sustainable enterprises that promise to be economically profitable.

'While every community has the capacity to join the clean energy economy,' Vice President Kamala Harris said, 'not every community has had the opportunity.'

Harris travelled to Charlotte, North Carolina Thursday to unveil the funds. 

'We have the capacity with this approach to empower communities to decide which projects they want that will have the greatest impact from their perspective in the place they call home,' the vice president said.

But critics of the program on the Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce Committee charged the funding was 'ripe for waste, fraud, and abuse.'

Rather than local communities, the greatest beneficiary would be China, House Republicans argued in their press statement. 

While the United States currently produces one third of its solar panels domestically, it faces fierce competition from China — which produces 98 percent of the world's solar wafers, according to Reuters. 

Republicans in Congress blasted the funding as a taxpayer-financed 'slush fund.' They argued that the grants risk delivering billions of dollars to China which 'controls the components needed for renewable energy' adding the Asian country is 'one of our greatest adversaries'

While the US currently produces one third of its solar panels domestically, it faces fierce competition from China - which produces 98 percent of the world's solar wafers, according to Reuters. Today, the US imposes a 39 percent tariff on solar components imported from China

'By mandating technologies that are fully dependent on resources from China,' Republican lawmakers said, 'the President is taking taxpayer dollars and using them to line the pockets of one of our greatest adversaries.'

President Biden's initiative has also lined the pockets of domestic US solar energy industry, however, with federal tax credits for domestic solar panel manufacturers.

Thursday's announcement of the 'green bank' funding had been previously approved by Congress in 2022 as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), alongside billions in subsidies and tax incentives for America's domestic solar industry.

'The IRA subsidies are hugely lucrative, but they're still not enough to compete against cheap imports,' Pol Lezcano, a senior analyst at BloombergNEF, told the Financial Times.

Lezcano expressed the opinion that a 'new protectionist measure' would be needed to help make American solar manufacturing competitive against China's dominance.

READ MORE: Could YOU become 'energy independent'? Meet the Americans who cut their bills AND make money selling electricity back to the grid

 Solar panel installations jumped in the US in 2023 - with residential installations up 13 percent on the year prior. Last year, almost 800,000 Americans added solar panels to their homes. One of these people was Chris Graf, from Austin, Texas. Not only does he no longer receive $250 monthly bills from his energy supplier, he has also received $2,000 in rebates for selling energy back to the grid.

Today, the US already imposes a 14 percent tariff on imported solar components from most countries — with Chinese imports facing an additional 25 percent tariff.

Until last June, when Biden issued a moratorium, the US had imposed a 200 percent duty on Chinese solar panels in an effort to thwart what the Financial Times described as China's efforts to crush its aspiring US competitors with a flood of cheap solar.

'[China] does not want the US to have its own domestic industry . . . It’s a pretty dire situation,' Mark Widmar, CEO of First Solar, America's largest solar manufacturer, told the business paper.

The $20 billion in nonprofit bank grants, officially named Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, does specifically mandate financing exclusively for solar energy projects.

However, an upcoming $7 billion will be award this spring under the GGRF's 'Solar for All' program, officials said.

Concern over the rapid pace of climate change has reached a fever pitch in over the past year, with dire warnings of 'mega-hurricanes' and the re-emergence of ancient diseases like the plague, according to one US government-funded study. 

The United Nation's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that several climate records were broken and in some cases 'smashed' last year.

Greenhouse gas levels, surface temperatures, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rises, and Antarctic ice loss were all escalated in 2023 due to fossil fuel emissions, their report warned.

'Sirens are blaring across all major indicators,' according United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

'Some records aren't just chart-topping, they're chart-busting – and changes are speeding-up.'