A Lame Duck Can Be A Mean Duck, & That’s What We Need Right Now

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The term “lame duck” describes weakness. A lame duck can’t keep up with the rest of its flock, and thus can more easily fall to predators. A politician facing the end of their last term ends up in a similar position, with little to no influence because everyone knows they’ll be gone soon.

At the same time, though, disconnection from the future can have its advantages. Because there’s now no election to worry about, a politician finding themselves in this position can do things that they otherwise wouldn’t do. At this point, Joe Biden not only doesn’t have to worry about his own election, but also doesn’t have to worry about his party keeping the office. So, he has a lot of latitude, at least within the powers of the presidency.

Likewise, others working in the Biden administration, even career public servants, no longer have to worry about keeping their jobs. Why? Because under Project 2025 (which Republicans are now openly embracing again—surprise, surprise), they’re pretty much all going to be fired and replaced with Trump/Heritage loyalists. While they all need to figure out their plans for January or February, there’s not much keeping them from fully exercising their individual authorities between now and then.

One common trope in movies is a chase on foot through a city. Whoever’s running through people’s yards, garages, and houses will obviously try to weave a complicated path in hopes of losing whoever’s chasing them. They’ll also try to lock doors, throw mattresses off beds, spill oil or water, release animals, and do anything they can to slow their pursuers down.

This strategy of leaving as many obstacles behind is what we need right now. With Project 2025 chasing us all down, this idea applies broadly to many different areas of policy, but this is CleanTechnica, so I’m going to focus on ways that the Biden administration can make it harder and slower to implement the Project 2025 agenda when it comes to cleantech matters.

Presidential Authority

While Trump aims to exceed presidential authority, Biden doesn’t have that option. Not only is he more committed to the rule of law (even if imperfect at that sometimes), but abandoning constitutional limits on power would legitimize Trump doing the same when he gets into office. So, going dictator to stop the dictator is NOT an option. This has to be done by the book, even if the book needs to be used creatively.

Presidential power is limited, but there are still a lot of things a president can do without needing the approval of Congress. These powers include:

Command the armed forces, including warfare for up to 60 days (War Powers Resolution) and the calling up of national guard and/or militias he may form, as well control nuclear weapons
Grant pardons
Receive ambassadors, direct the Department of State, negotiate treaties (but not confirm), make executive agreements, protect Americans abroad
Make temporary appointments during senate recesses
Exercise emergency powers, including those of publicly declared emergencies and the mysterious classified PEADs that have been prepared.
The “bully pulpit” (the president’s ability to get an audience, which isn’t an official power)

Whether a president has exceeded constitutional and statute authorities is always up for debate, but the only recourse Congress has is to impeach and remove, while the courts can issue injunctions. In both cases, it takes time to take action, so these checks on presidential power would likely be avoided until January unless the president did something blatantly outside of his powers that brings an emergency injunction or a rapid impeachment/removal.

Using These Powers To Protect Clean Technology Initiatives

Now that we have all of the chess pieces laid out, it’s time to talk about using them to achieve the goal of protecting progress on clean technologies. Like him or not, the Biden administration did a lot of good as part of the Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, and repealing these laws would be a high priority for the second Trump administration.

One thing that Biden could do to protect these provisions would be to speed up the disbursement of funds to the states for clean energy “rebates” (point of sale credits) and the construction of EV charging infrastructure. By sending this money out early, it would be removed from the hands of the Trump administration, preventing him from being able to stop states from using it.

Another part of the law has discretionary funding to achieve clean energy goals. That money needs to be sent to companies like Tesla, Electrify America, and Ionna immediately to fund future charging station construction. Again, once the money’s spent (even if stations aren’t built), it’s a lot harder to claw it back.

Neighboring governments (Canada and Mexico) can be used in this way, too. By awarding grants for charging station infrastructure near borders and perhaps even at foreign consulates in the US, charging stations could be built with these funds without completed construction before Trump returns to office.

Executive agreements could be used to coordinate resistance to the incoming Trump administration’s fossil fuel policies. By getting other global leaders to prepare for Trump’s bullying and threats, the United States might not really have much choice but to continue the energy transition. The United States is a big economy, but other countries can work together to make a bigger school of fish.

Controlled Foreign Policy Chaos

Speaking of foreign policy, it can be possible to keep Trump too busy putting out fires to have any time or resources to use against clean energy. Not only would this keep him from focusing on domestic policy, but it could protect freedom in the world from his dictator friends.

An immediate transfer of personnel and equipment to Ukraine and Taiwan, followed by gifting equipment to those governments and standing by for Trump to order them home, would probably do the trick. This would, of course, anger Xi Jinping and Putin, who may even choose to escalate or start wars. By pitting these people against the US, Trump would either have to continue fighting them to avoid alienating the American public or he would have to pull US personnel out, leaving all of the gifted equipment behind.

Another possible approach to tying Trump’s hands would be to take advantage of nuclear latency. Biden is unlikely to pull this card, but he could privately call ambassadors/representatives in from countries that are a “screwdriver’s turn” away from nuclear weapons. If he were to encourage them to go ahead and secretly turn it because the United States is about to not have their back, Trump wouldn’t be able to turn those countries over to his buddies for predation. It would also put him in the position of needing to openly side with Russia and China, which would harm his position within the Republican Party greatly.

The Bully Pulpit

Another thing he could do to trip up Trump would simply be to ask the American people to not cooperate with Trump if he exceeds presidential authority. Obviously, this would anger people who voted for Trump who thought they were getting a king out of the deal, but those people aren’t needed. If even a relatively small percentage of the population decides it’s not going to play ball, the power of the government would be greatly diminished.

In such a speech, Biden would need to start by making it clear that people should recognize the legitimacy of a lawful and fair election, and that people should respect Trump’s legitimate authority. But, he should then go on to explain that there are legal limits to that authority. Basically, give people a mini-class on the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and then recommend peacefully boycotting the government should it violate the supreme laws of the land.

This would obviously be controversial, but like Eisenhower’s farewell address that warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex, it would positively influence domestic policy and popular thinking for decades to come.

Featured image: an AI-generated image of a “lame duck.”