Top DOGE senator demands answers on plan to exhaust CHIPs Act funds before Trump arrives

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EXCLUSIVE: A top U.S. senator is expected to demand that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo explain her reported plans to exhaust the remainder of the CHIPs and Science Act’s multibillion-dollar appropriations before President-elect Trump takes office.

"Your recent mandate to the Department of Commerce staff to work overtime — including weekends — spending billions of dollars in funding provided by the CHIPs and Science Act as quickly as possible before President-elect Trump takes office in January is extremely concerning," Senate DOGE Caucus leader Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, writes in a letter that is to be given to Raimondo on Wednesday.

Ernst called on Raimondo, the previous Rhode Island governor, to immediately halt all last-minute spending plans.

Raimondo recently told Politico she’d "like to have really almost all of the money obligated" from what is one of President Biden’s major government spending initiatives "by the time we leave."

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Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. (Reuters/Nathan Howard/File)

The CHIPs Act, sponsored by then-Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, sought to invest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research, development and other related endeavors.

In her letter, Ernst said microchips and other "essential goods" strengthen the U.S. economy and supply chain.

She said that the success of the CHIPs Act hinges on careful planning and execution, which, according to her interpretation, are not reflected in Raimondo's remarks regarding the upcoming final rounds of spending.

"[B]inge buying shopping sprees by bureaucrats shoveling billions out the door before your term expires" are unwise, Ernst said.

"This is not a time to let the CHIPs fall where they may," she said, pointing to reports that nearly $280 billion in COVID-19 response funding was wasted or subject to fraud.

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"Shoveling out heaps of taxpayer dollars as fast as possible, with little to no oversight, is part of the reason the United States government is nearly $36 trillion in debt today," Ernst wrote.

In exclusive comments to Fox News Digital, Ernst quipped that while "Black Friday might have come-and-gone, the Biden administration is on a spending spree, convinced every tax dollar must go."

"We’ve never seen bureaucrats work this hard, and you can be sure they made a list and aren’t checking it twice to find out who is naughty and nice. This is backwards and underscores the need for DOGE to shake up Washington and bring some much-needed Iowa common sense to the capital," she said.

In her letter, Ernst wrote that with $25 billion of $53 billion in available appropriations already earmarked, it is difficult to believe the same level of oversight will be given to the last-minute expenditures as there likely was for the first two years’ worth.

In addition to her criticisms and demands that the spending be halted, Ernst asked Raimondo to inform her on several related fronts before the day the new Congress is seated next year.

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Ernst is requesting the total number of ongoing negotiations between Commerce and CHIPs Act fund applicants, the duration of planned CHIPs projects and the amount of money spent via the CHIPs Act both prior to and after Trump’s election win.

She will also ask Raimondo how her team is coordinating with the Trump transition on this matter.

Trump has chosen Cantor-Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick to succeed Raimondo on Jan. 20.

Fox News Digital reached out to Raimondo on the general subject of her remarks to Politico. A Raimondo representative directed Fox News Digital to a portion of her interview: "You know, there's a deadline, there's a clear deadline with a change of administration. So, certainly, a deadline focuses the mind. But this was the plan we were on all along to complete this mission. I don't worry terribly about any of the CHIPs money being rolled back, as you say. I mean, the Commerce Department is somewhat unique in so far as everything we've done and are doing is bipartisan," Raimondo said.