How the Biden Administration Beat a ‘Cold Start’ to Rev Up Clean Tech
The federal Loan Programs Office came roaring back to life after passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Joe Biden signs the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 into law at the White House in Washington, DC in August 2022.
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty ImagesThe Loan Programs Office (LPO), a division of the US Department of Energy, is charged with giving government-backed loans to clean energy companies trying to scale up new technologies. The office originated during the Bush administration, was active through the Obama years and went quiet — to say the least — under the Trump administration.
Perhaps a better way to say it is that from 2017 through 2021, the LPO was in a sort of suspended animation. Only a single project, the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, received a government guarantee, according to the office’s timeline .