President Donald Trump’s opening volley of executive orders has injected uncertainty into Washington’s funding of clean fuels.
The new president has sought to put a stop to predecessor Joe Biden’s “Green New Deal” and funding under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The law, which had bipartisan support, contains subsidies and tax credits for green and blue fuels that can be used in shipping and other industries looking for low-carbon alternatives.

In his Monday order entitled Unleashing American Energy, Trump said federal agencies “shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated” through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes $7bn in funding for seven clean hydrogen hubs.
The projects were to produce a mix of colours of clean hydrogen — green fuel made from renewable electricity, blue made from natural gas with carbon capture and pink produced with nuclear energy.
Some of the fuel was expected to make its way into shipping, where hydrogen is a feedstock for clean methanol and ammonia.
Last week, the Biden administration announced that the last two hydrogen hubs had been awarded the first tranche of their funding, but there is much more in the pipeline.
For example, the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub received $18.8m out of the $750m total.
90-day review
Trump’s pause on disbursements gives agency heads 90 days to review whether the Inflation Reduction Act funding is consistent with the new administration’s policies aimed at unleashing US energy might.
Other Inflation Reduction Act support was expected to come in the form of tax credits for green hydrogen production and carbon capture.
The US Treasury Department issued long-awaited guidance on the green hydrogen tax credit earlier this month.
However, Trump’s executive order rescinding Biden’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and pausing regulatory processes raised concerns about the status of those credits.
But tax lawyer Barbara De Marigny, a Houston-based partner at Baker Botts, told TradeWinds that Biden’s order implementing the law did not give any “special boost” to the tax credits beyond what was passed by Congress.
Reversing the order does not reverse the underlying law creating the tax credits.
She also said that Treasury’s guidance on the 45V credit has already been published in the Federal Register, so it is not affected by Trump’s regulatory pause.
“The regulations that we saw come out as final regulation are safe from an executive order,” De Marigny said.
“Unless and until the rules get changed … there’s nothing that’s pulled the rug out from under the current tax credit system.”
That does not mean they are safe forever. The Treasury Department could provide new guidance, but that would take a similar regulatory process to do it.
And Congress has the power to rescind the Inflation Reduction Act.
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