Exclusive: summit US Senator Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is expected to demand an explanation of her announced plans to exhaust the remainder of the multibillion-dollar Chip and Science Act allocation before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
“Your recent mandate for Commerce Department employees to work overtime — including weekends — and spend billions of dollars in CHIP & Science Act funding as quickly as possible before President-elect Trump takes office in January is deeply troubling,” Senate DOGE Leader Cluster Joni Ernst, Republican from Iowahe writes in a letter that will be submitted to Raymundo on Wednesday.
Call Ernest Raimondo, the former Rhode Island governor, should immediately halt all last-minute spending plans.
Raimundo recently He said POLITICO She “would like to have almost all of the money” in what is one of President Biden's major government spending initiatives “by the time we leave.”
Gina Raymondo (Reuters/Nathan Howard/File)
The chip bill, sponsored by then-Rep. Tim Ryan, Democrat of Ohio, sought investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development and other related endeavors.
Ernst said in her letter that microchips and other “essential commodities” strengthen the U.S. economy and supply chain.
She said the success of the CHIPS law depends on careful planning and implementation, which, in her interpretation, is not reflected in Raimondo's statements regarding the upcoming final rounds of spending.
She said that “indulging in shopping sprees by bureaucrats who are shoveling billions out the door before your term is up” is unwise.
“This is not the time to let the chips fall where they may,” she said, noting reports that nearly $280 billion in COVID-19 response funding has been wasted or subject to fraud.
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“Getting rid of piles of taxpayer money as quickly as possible, with little to no oversight, is part of the reason the U.S. government is roughly $36 trillion in debt today,” Ernst wrote.
In exclusive comments to Fox News Digital, Ernst quipped that while “Black Friday may have come and gone, the Biden administration is on a spending spree, convinced that every tax dollar must go.”
“We've never seen bureaucrats work so hard, and you can be sure they make a list and don't double-check it to see who's naughty and who's nice. This is counterproductive and underscores the need for Doug to change Washington and Washington,” she said. “Bringing some much-needed common sense to the state of Iowa.” To the capital.”
In her letter, Ernst wrote that with $25 billion of the $53 billion in appropriations already available, it is hard to believe that the same level of oversight will be given to last-minute expenditures as was likely to be provided during the first two years.
In addition to her criticism and demands to halt spending, Ernst asked Raimondo to inform her on several relevant fronts before the new Congress next year.
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Ernst asks for the total number of ongoing negotiations between Trade Finance and CHIPS Act applicants, the duration of planned CHIPS projects and the amount of money spent through the CHIPS Act before and after Trump won the election.
She will also ask Raimondo how her team will coordinate with Trump's transition on this matter.
Trump chose Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to succeed Raimondo on January 20.
Fox News Digital reached out to Raimondo about the general subject of her statements to Politico. A representative for Raimondo directed Fox News Digital to part of her interview: “You know, there's a deadline, there's a clear deadline to change the administration. So, certainly the deadline is mind-focused. But that was the plan we were working on.” All the time to complete this mission, I'm not too concerned about getting any of the chip money back, you say, and the Commerce Department is somewhat unique in that everything we have done and are doing has bipartisan support,” Raimondo said.
