A legacy erased: How Trump’s executive orders dismantle the Biden agenda and erode democracy

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Edited by Arya Kumar, Rishi Chandra, Amelia Cantwell, and Owen Andrews

A recent lawsuit filed against the U.S. Department of Energy by 13 Democratic attorneys general accuses the Trump administration of illegally canceling $2.7 billion in energy and infrastructure funding meant for their states. This money was appropriated by Congress under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Legal experts argue that by freezing this funding, Trump violated the principle of separation of powers, which gives Congress oversight of federal spending. While some legal challenges to reverse similar funding pauses have succeeded, this process has thrown years of work begun under the Biden administration into disarray.

Though the Trump administration has specifically targeted blue states, communities across the country have seen infrastructure and clean-energy projects interrupted or canceled, resulting in unfinished work, lost job opportunities, and endless confusion. A recent study from E2, a clean energy think tank, found that about $35 billion in funding towards clean energy projects was canceled in 2025, compared to about $2.5 billion in 2024. A tracker from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees estimated that, across all sectors, Trump froze as much as $430 billion in federal funding in just his first 100 days.

By rapidly issuing executive orders to halt or reverse major investment projects begun under Biden, Trump threatens to destabilize traditional governing processes. Within the first year of Trump’s second term, he issued 221 executive orders. This surpassed the 220 he issued across his entire first term, which had been the highest recorded since Jimmy Carter’s presidency in the 1970s. Many of these are aimed squarely at undoing the congressional legislation that made up the core of Biden’s legacy, specifically the aforementioned Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the American Rescue Plan and the CHIPS and Science Act. These all represented large investments into the nation’s infrastructure, job market, clean energy growth, and technological development. It was intended to transform the American economic landscape far into the future, particularly in rural and low-income areas, and much of the legislation was widely popular. While it was always unlikely that Trump would build further on these measures, his legally dubious strategy of canceling projects already in motion undermines the durability of real legislation and contributes to a demoralizing whiplash effect in American politics.

It is possible that some of Biden’s work will survive these roadblocks, since legal challenges have allowed some projects to resume. Trump also seems to share Biden’s goal of restoring domestic manufacturing, though his approach relies on placing tariffs on foreign countries’ goods rather than directly providing funding. But even if his strategy did shift to align with Biden’s, it might be hard to resume a workflow that has already been so drastically interrupted.

The enormous scale of Biden’s domestic agenda meant it would take years for all the projects to be completed. The total size of these bills is estimated at around $1.1 trillion, a price tag that has drawn comparisons to the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a president who had twelve years in office and a favorable successor to secure his legacy. Biden, on the other hand, had only four years to guarantee that the money could be spent and relied largely on the discretion of states and localities to implement the projects. Logistical hurdles, such as grant applications and an outdated power grid, slowed the process, and the administration had limited power to motivate states to act. Some recipients, especially in the clean energy sector, were also slow on uptake due to uncertainties about market demand. By late 2024, only about half the allotted funds had been applied to projects. In the end, many of the projects were unfinished or not even started by the time Trump took office. The $42 billion broadband expansion program, for example, had yet to connect a single household to the internet, while only 47 new electric vehicle charging stations had been built. An overhaul of the nation’s transportation, utilities, and energy sectors was never intended to happen quickly; after all, Biden chose to refer to an “Infrastructure Decade” rather than just the scope of his own presidency.

However, even a portion of this funding is still an enormous investment that has delivered real results. Thousands of roads and bridges have been modernized and repaired, with nearly a million new construction jobs created. Bus, rail, and waterway infrastructure have received considerable maintenance and expansion, improving transit and optimizing supply chains. Hundreds of thousands of lead pipes have been replaced, with plans to replace all of them by the end of the decade, expanding access to clean and safe drinking water for many low-income communities. The country’s capacity for solar panel manufacturing nearly quadrupled. Semiconductor manufacturing was expected to jump from 0 to 20% of global production by the end of the decade. Under the Justice40 Initiative, agencies worked to ensure that 40% of these new jobs went to historically marginalized communities. While some of the upfront costs of clean energy investments were higher than expected, the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimated that the Inflation Reduction Act could begin reducing the deficit as early as 2028 by spurring economic growth and creating a more equitable tax system.

The legislation was so popular that even Republican legislatures began taking credit for the programs it funded, despite having voted against it. About 75% of the investment in clean energy projects went to Republican districts, an impressive share that did not seem to bolster much political support for Biden in those regions. Republicans in Congress celebrated the new projects in their districts, giving the impression that they were responsible for securing the funding they had directly opposed. Trump even went so far as to put his name on the signs attached to projects funded by the infrastructure bill.

While Biden’s domestic agenda showed promise for lasting results, albeit with a slow rollout, Trump’s move to dismantle these programs via executive order uproots any sense of progress. The whiplash of moving between two ideologically opposed administrations can damage the public’s confidence in both political parties to achieve meaningful change while weakening trust in government institutions more broadly. This fosters a culture of cynicism that may discourage people from participating in politics. They may even lose trust in the principles of democracy if change through the congressional process feels impossible and heightened executive power seems to be the only viable way to achieve tangible results.

This is not to say executive orders are inherently bad, nor that they are exclusively a Trump-related phenomenon. Biden issued 162 executive orders during his term compared to 220 in Trump’s first term, certainly a lower rate but an important part of his governing strategy nonetheless. Trump has also worked to produce several major pieces of legislation—most recently his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which reduced taxes for businesses and increased spending on border security and defense while cutting funding for Medicaid and other government assistance programs. However, the Biden administration adopted a holistic, long-term view of investing in America’s working and middle classes over the course of the decade, while the Trump administration’s strategy has thus far seemed haphazard, focused on uprooting norms without a cohesive plan to replace them. While policy reversals are inevitable between opposing administrations, this constant flux makes it difficult to assess which parts of Biden’s agenda might have worked well, leaving the whole thing looking like a failure.

Importantly, we should not pin all the blame on the collapse of Biden’s policy legacy on Trump. Many Biden administration officials moved cautiously and failed to streamline bureaucratic processes, making the implementation of the new programs less efficient than they could have been. While any economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic was bound to be turbulent, and this should not automatically detract from the administration’s other successes, Biden’s claims to have “improved the lives of millions of Americans” often came across as out of touch when many Americans were struggling to buy groceries. It can feel patronizing to be told to feel grateful about long-term projects when the short-term picture looks so bleak—even when long-term projects may be the only way of creating lasting change.

Though Biden’s ambitious domestic agenda was far from perfect, he seemed to recognize that governing requires long-term thinking and durable policy change, a perspective that can be easy to forget amid the chaos of the Trump administration. The Biden administration’s attempts at long-term policymaking showcase the challenges of translating investment into tangible action and especially into political success, where most voters are swayed by short-term conditions. Still, the American people deserve leadership that can prioritize the future over the immediate moment—if they can support those leaders long enough to see their plans through.