If the Biden administration’s green energy agenda were a bus, it would have no wheels, a dead battery, and a $160 million price tag. Enter Lion Electric, a Canadian electric school bus company that was handed nearly $160 million in taxpayer-funded subsidies—only to collapse into bankruptcy, leaving school districts across America high and dry​.

Now, watchdogs like EPA administrator Lee Zeldin are demanding answers, exposing yet another mismanaged, wasteful, and completely avoidable green energy failure.

$160 Million to Nowhere

As part of Biden’s $5 billion Clean School Bus program, Lion Electric was awarded $159 million to produce 435 electric buses. The administration touted it as a hallmark of its climate agenda, with Kamala Harris herself front and center, gushing over the initiative​.

Fast forward to today:

• Lion Electric has stopped manufacturing.
• It has laid off its workforce.
• It hasn’t delivered $95 million worth of promised buses to 55 school districts​.

Superintendents across the country are left wondering whether they’ll ever receive the buses they were promised. “No buses have been delivered to our district. We are on hold,” said Dawn Wallace, superintendent of Ohio Valley School District in Ohio​.

Warnings Were Ignored

Here’s the kicker: Lion Electric was in deep financial trouble long before Biden started funneling money into it.

• Since 2020, the company has lost $301.6 million.
• Its stock price has collapsed from $33.48 per share to just $0.08—a staggering 99.7% wipeout​.
• It was hit with a class-action lawsuit after allegedly misleading investors with “grossly unrealistic financial projections”​.

And yet, the Biden administration kept the money flowing, rewarding a failing company because it fit the “green energy” narrative.

Lee Zeldin Calls Out the Corruption

Unlike the rubber-stamp bureaucrats who handed Lion Electric millions with no oversight, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin is demanding answers. He pointed to an undercover video from Project Veritas in which a Biden official admitted that the EPA frantically pushed billions into green projects before the administration left office​.

Zeldin isn’t buying the excuses, stating:

“They knew they were wasting hard-earned American taxpayer dollars… The American people deserve answers. I am committed to delivering for them.”

House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) also blasted the administration, saying:

“The Biden-Harris Administration spent four years wasting taxpayer dollars pursuing its Green New Deal agenda… Communities across the country are paying the price”​.

The Joliet Factory Debacle

One of the biggest symbols of this failure is Lion Electric’s 900,000-square-foot factory in Joliet, Illinois.

• The plant was supposed to create 1,400 jobs.
• Local officials hyped it as a clean energy success story.
• Today, it’s a ghost town, with Lion Electric halting operations and laying off workers​.

Even Joliet’s economic development director admitted, “Now we have in our community a large space that is potentially going to sit vacant for a while.” Translation: We were conned, and now we’re stuck with an empty factory​.

Another Green Energy Scam Implodes

Lion Electric’s collapse follows a familiar pattern of government-funded green energy disasters:

1. Biden administration throws taxpayer money at a politically favored company.
2. Company was already financially unstable but gets millions anyway.
3. Company burns through cash, fails to deliver, then collapses.
4. Taxpayers and local communities are left with nothing but empty promises.

We saw it with Solyndra. We saw it with Proterra. And now, we’re seeing it with Lion Electric.

The difference this time? Lee Zeldin and House Republicans aren’t letting Biden off the hook.

The Bottom Line

The Biden administration’s obsession with green energy subsidies has led to billions in waste, failed projects, and broken promises.

Meanwhile, school districts still need buses, communities still need jobs, and American taxpayers are once again paying the price for Biden’s reckless spending.

It’s time to stop funding fantasies and start demanding real accountability—and thanks to Lee Zeldin, that reckoning might finally be coming.

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About the feature image. Lion Electric did win mHUB’s Chicago manufacturer of the year award last March.

Essay by Eric Worrall

According the Hansen the 2.0C climate target is dead.

Climate change target of 2C is ‘dead’, says renowned climate scientist

Prof James Hansen says pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, though other scientists disagree

Damian Carrington Environment editorWed 5 Feb 2025 04.31 AEDT

The pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, according to renowned climate scientist Prof James Hansen, who said the international 2C target is “dead”.

…

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) defined a scenario which gives a 50% chance to keep warming under 2C – that scenario is now impossible,” he said. “The 2C target is dead, because the global energy use is rising, and it will continue to rise.”

The new analysis said global heating is likely to reach 2C by 2045, unless solar geoengineering is deployed.

…

In the new study, published in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, Hansen’s team said: “Failure to be realistic in climate assessment and failure to call out the fecklessness of current policies to stem global warming is not helpful to young people.”

…

“The basic problem is that the waste products of fossil fuels are still dumped in the air free of charge,” he said. He also backed the rapid development of nuclear power.

…

He said: “We do not recommend implementing climate interventions, but we suggest that young people not be prohibited from having knowledge of the potential and limitations of purposeful global cooling in their toolbox.”

Political change is needed to achieve all these measures, Hansen said: “Special interests have assumed far too much power in our political systems. In democratic countries the power should be with the voter, not with the people who have the money. That requires fixing some of our democracies, including the US.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/04/climate-change-target-of-2c-is-dead-says-renowned-climate-scientist

There is plenty of evidence voters already do have the power in the USA, even when they choose to use that voting power in ways James Hansen doesn’t approve. In the recent Presidential election, Kamala Harris substantially outspent President Trump, but voters still chose President Trump. Clearly money isn’t everything, at least when it comes to US elections.

I’m not going to lose any sleep over James Hansen’s climate doomsday predictions. In the article above, a number of Hansen’s former colleagues distanced themselves from his latest outburst – with good reason.

James Hansen has made a number of predictions over the years which proven to be less than accurate;

1986: Global Temperatures are predicted to increase an additional 3 or 4 degrees sometime between 2010 and 2020

1988: Global Warming Will Cause Droughts

2001: West Side Highway Will be Underwater Within 30 Years

2008: In five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of see ice in the summer

etc.

Of course, even amongst climate alarmists, there is always someone who is determined to go one better

Interestingly even Hansen’s zeal for reducing CO2 appears to have limits. WUWT once offered a joint platform with Hansen, to support research into nuclear reactors. But Hansen went quiet, and didn’t respond to our offer.

I am however concerned about Hansen’s repeated attacks on democracy.

Hansen has his moment of glory, though nowadays even Hansen’s colleagues politely distance themselves from his extreme predictions. But Hansen still has some influence.

I believe Hansen’s attacks on democracy are potentially damaging. In periods of turmoil like the present day, there is a risk Hansen’s words will influence more young people to join radical environmental movements. Hansen has appealed to young people, and may still have the power to influence young people to embrace his climate extremism.

If even one young person is influenced by Hansen’s alarmist rhetoric, and as a result decides to throw away their future by committing a futile act of eco-terrorism, what a waste and a tragedy that would be, and perhaps already is.

I am not accusing James Hansen of deliberately inciting acts of eco-terrorism. But if you tell a bunch of young people the system is broken, and the world they will inherit will be a dystopian hellscape, don’t be surprised if some of them decide to try to take matters into their own hands.