President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that instructs all government agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” from the two acts of government that created subsidies for the clean hydrogen industry.
This means that no more funding can be handed out, for now, to any of the seven regional clean hydrogen hubs that were awarded billions of dollars by the Biden administration under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), all of which have now received initial funding in the tens of millions of dollars.
And while it technically prevents funds being handed out to clean hydrogen projects under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act — including from the 45V clean hydrogen production tax credits or the 45Q tax credit for carbon capture and storage, where companies can choose to be paid upfront — such payments were not imminent, as they are only paid out once clean hydrogen is produced or CO2 is sequestered.
