The office is also reviewing applications requesting an eye-popping total of $324.3 billion, up from the $303.5 billion reported last month.

By Thomas Catenacci, The Washington Free Beacon

House GOP leaders are calling on the Biden-Harris administration to immediately freeze its behemoth green energy loan disbursements, which officials have accelerated in recent weeks ahead of President Donald Trump’s upcoming term, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), Morgan Griffith (R., Va.), and Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.), all of whom serve in top positions on the Energy and Commerce Committee, penned a letter Wednesday to the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, arguing that its recent flood of loans presents substantial financial risks to taxpayers.

They added that the accelerated spending appears motivated by looming cuts to green energy loan programs, which Trump has promised to “terminate.”

The Republicans cite a recent Free Beacon analysis that tracked all pending and closed green loans dished out by the Loan Programs Office.

Since that analysis was published last month, the office’s total financial commitments have increased from $37.6 billion to nearly $57 billion, a jump driven in large part by multibillion-dollar loans promised to automakers Rivian and Stellantis for electric vehicle projects.

The office is also reviewing applications requesting an eye-popping total of $324.3 billion, up from the $303.5 billion reported last month.

The letter underscores the risks of fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds posed by big-budget green programs, something Republicans have raised the alarm about since the Biden-Harris administration made green spending programs a centerpiece of its aggressive climate agenda.

Those concerns have been amplified by the newfound urgency in disbursing green loans ahead of the Trump administration, leaving lawmakers to worry if such loans are receiving proper vetting.

“The last-minute drive to expedite loans exposes the federal government—and American taxpayers—to tremendous risk,” McMorris Rodgers, Griffith, and Duncan wrote to Loan Programs Office director Jigar Shah, according to the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

“On election day, the American people rejected the Biden-Harris administration’s rush-to-green agenda,” they continued.

“To honor the will of our electorate and facilitate an orderly transition, we insist that the Biden-Harris administration cease its campaign to quickly distribute federal funding before the incoming administration takes office.”

The Loan Programs Office’s spending, meanwhile, was flagged by the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General in a report last month highlighting how the office’s loan authority has skyrocketed from $17.2 billion in 2021 to at least $402.2 billion, thanks to President Joe Biden’s landmark Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act.

The inspector general found that near-term deadlines may create pressure to cut corners; innovative projects that can only receive government funding, not private sector investment, come with “inherent risks;” accelerated due diligence of a proposal’s financial viability may fail, and the Loan Programs Office may fund foreign adversaries.

Altogether, the spending comes with an outsized risk of loan default “with the taxpayer picking up the bill.”

Overall, since September, the Loan Programs Office has announced conditional loan commitments worth a total of $25.5 billion for nine projects, Department of Energy data shows. It has closed on another $6.2 billion worth of loans for eight other projects in that same time span.

And since the election one month ago, the office has announced or closed on loans worth $20.6 billion to the following companies: Sunwealth for solar systems across 27 states, Grain Belt Express for a wind energy transmission line, Rivian for an EV assembly plant, Stellantis for a joint project with battery maker Samsung, Li-Cycle for EV battery materials processing, SK Siltron CSS for EV battery components manufacturing, and Eos Energy Enterprises for a battery storage systems project.

By comparison, between January 2021 and September 2024, it announced commitments worth less than $20 billion and closed on loans worth roughly $6 billion.

“This is an egregious abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Tom Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research and member of the 2016 Trump transition team, told the Free Beacon last month.

“Not one additional loan should go out the door between now and the inauguration. President Trump ran on an energy platform that included repealing the subsidies in the IRA and yet Biden is trying to rush this money out the door before he rides off into the Delaware sunset.”

“On day one, I hope the Trump administration will halt all loans that are not closed and audit all of the projects that have been approved, but especially the ones they are attempting to rush out the door since the election,” Pyle said.

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The death toll from COVID-19 surpassed the 7,000-mark Monday, with a record number of new daily cases – 10,946.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Coronavirus Cabinet approved Monday a series of measures designed to bring down the number of COVID-19 cases in the country without shutting down the business sector.

The death toll from COVID-19 surpassed the 7,000-mark Monday, with a record number of new daily cases – 10,946. The positivity rates are also the highest they’ve been in months. On Sunday, 7.8% of those tested were infected. Just one month ago the rate was 2.84%. The number of those hospitalized is also creeping up to pre-vaccination levels, with nearly 800 currently seriously ill.

To combat this, the Cabinet decided that the Green Pass system will apply to all employees of public institutions who are exposed to the public, including schools and pre-schools. Some 86% of all educational staff members have been inoculated so far. All unvaccinated staff will be required to show negative results twice a week from the quick antigen tests that are available around the country. Those who refuse to be tested will be not be allowed to go to work.

Teachers Association head Ran Erez, who had made it an ultimatum that all public servants have the same requirements, repeated his other demand to Channel 12 Monday night: that all students of vaccination age, 12 and up, should also have to present their Green Pass in order to gain entry to their schools. He threatened to turn to the courts if this request was denied.

Only some 53% of seventh-ninth graders have been vaccinated to date. The rate rises to 81% of high schoolers, according to the Health Ministry. In “red” cities, children will only be able to go to school if 70% of their class has been vaccinated.

As per previous government decisions, rapid coronavirus test kits have been delivered to distribution centers such as schools and local authorities. All parents are being asked to test their children Tuesday so that sick students will not start their school year Wednesday by endangering their classmates.

Those who must stay at home because they returned a positive result or are in isolation due to others, will at least temporarily have to resume distance learning as they did last year.

The fact that the Jewish High Holiday period has begun was also discussed.

Last week, before the pre-Rosh Hashanah period began for Ashkenazic Jews to say special penitential prayers (Selichot), the entire Western Wall plaza was divided into 18 capsules. The space for men and women was limited to 10,000 masked worshipers all together, with authorities closing the area once that number has been reached. That number was now lowered to 8,000.

Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked and Housing and Construction Minister Ze’ev Elkin voted against the limitation because it was not applied to Muslim worshipers on the Temple Mount.

“It makes no sense,” Elkin explained on Channel 12’s Morning News show Tuesday. “From an epidemiological point of view, people gather on the Temple Mount under very crowded conditions and it’s just as challenging as at the Kotel (Western Wall). It’s even worse, because the vaccination rates in the Arab sector are low. It’s a more dangerous event, so if we’re putting restrictions at the Kotel we should have done the same on the Temple Mount.”

During the recent Muslim holidays, up to 100,000 worshipers were allowed to pray in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount.

Several ministers have argued for restricting other kinds of mass gatherings, such as at entertainment venues. A recent Omer Adam concert, for example, had 12,000 people in the audience. According to Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, the only reason it was not brought up for a vote was that “there is no ability to coordinate this move with other ministries, nor is there a desire on the part of the Finance Ministry to compensate the industries” that would lose money as a result.

Internal Security Minister Omer Bar Lev pointed out that the Hassidic custom to pray at the grave of the Rebbe of Breslov in the Ukraine on Rosh Hashanah is also a “ticking time bomb.” It is a “mega-event,” with “100,000 people crowded there, then getting on a plane to Israel, returning to their homes and synagogues,” he said. “If someone thinks that the pessimistic predictions will come true and people will return from Uman sick, and that the solution is enforcement [of isolation regulations], he is deceiving himself.”

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