The Biden Energy Department blasted out billions of dollars to bolster the U.S. energy grid shortly before last fall’s election without adequate financial controls and staffing to properly protect taxpayers, an internal investigation has found.
In October 2024, the Department of Energy awarded $7.6 billion in funding to 105 projects across the United States, in support of various grid resilience initiatives. The Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships Program (GRIP) had a total of $10.5 billion allocated to it from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The DOE Office of Inspector General initiated an investigation to determine if the department’s Grid Deployment Office (GDO), which administered the funding for the GRIP program under the Biden administration, had adequate internal controls and resources to implement the program.
According to the OIG’s report released Wednesday, the GDO lacked an effective internal controls system to manage risk, nor did it have staffing resources to implement the program.
“Without a robust internal controls system, GDO may not identify risks that could negatively impact the GRIP program’s outcomes,” the report said. “These impacts could include improperly reimbursed costs, fraud, waste, and undisclosed conflicts of interest.”
The lack of adequate accounting practices for taxpayer funding may extend beyond the GDO.
Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright said during a House Appropriations hearing earlier this month the Loans Program Office at the DOE had issued about $40 billion in loans for energy projects over the last 15 years. But in the last 76 days of the Biden administration, that number jumped to $100 billion. Wright said that the rushed loan agreements lacked clauses traditionally required by the DOE.
Hellbound and Down 