$2 billion grant for group linked to Stacey Abrams is among those canceled
The Trump administration terminated $20 billion in grants the Biden administration awarded last year to eight environmental nonprofits, citing concerns over fraud, waste, and abuse.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin notified grant recipients of the action Tuesday evening and explained in an announcement that incidents of misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud related to the funding posed an unacceptable risk to taxpayers. The action came after a comprehensive internal review and is consistent with separate ongoing federal investigations spearheaded by the Department of Justice and FBI, Zeldin said.
“EPA has determined that these deficiencies pose an unacceptable risk to the efficient and lawful execution of this grant that cannot be remedied by imposing specific conditions, necessitating immediate termination to safeguard taxpayer funds and ensure compliance with federal financial assistance regulations,” Zeldin wrote in letters to the groups obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“EPA is committed to ensuring that federal funding is administered in a manner that upholds transparency, accountability, and the highest standards of fiscal responsibility,” he continued. “This termination reflects the agency’s duty to protect public funds and maintain the integrity of its grant programs.”
The termination of the grants—awarded under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program, which was created by former president Joe Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act to fund various green energy projects—is a significant escalation in the EPA’s efforts to both trim Biden-era spending and gut existing left-wing climate initiatives. Zeldin’s previous cuts to Biden-era programs garnered about $1.7 billion in taxpayer savings, meaning Tuesday’s action multiplies that figure by nearly 12 times.
Grant recipients, though, are expected to vigorously defend the funding—the two largest recipients of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants, the Climate United Fund and the Coalition for Green Capital, filed lawsuits in federal court over the last week to defend their grants. If the grants are successfully terminated, it could be fatal for the recipients, many of which were founded in order to secure the funding.
“Climate United does not have other committed sources of funding to replace the grant funds,” Climate United wrote in its complaint. “Without those grant funds, Climate United will shortly run out of cash to pay operating expenses—it will no longer be able to pay its employees, pay rent, pay critical service providers and contractors, or meet its commitments under the loans and awards it has already approved.”
EPA lawyers are expected to appear in court as soon as Wednesday in relation to the litigation.
Zeldin’s announcement comes after the Free Beacon reported that one of the eight recipients of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants was a brand new nonprofit linked to perennial Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams. That group, Power Forward Communities, received $2 billion to replace gas-powered appliances with electric alternatives in low-income communities nationwide.
The Free Beacon also reported that Jahi Wise, the former director of the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund office, oversaw the $5 billion grant to the Coalition for Green Capital, where he served as policy director before joining the Biden administration.
Zeldin’s team, meanwhile, discovered that Biden officials parked the $20 billion pot of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program funding at an outside financial institution, Citibank, in a first-of-its-kind move for the EPA. Zeldin warned that the move reduced the federal government’s ability to conduct oversight of the grants.
“EPA will be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars dedicated to our core mission of protecting human health and the environment, not a frivolous spender in the name of ‘climate equity,'” Zeldin said in a statement Tuesday evening.
This article was originally published at freebeacon.com
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