The outro from February 10's "Bezos Earth Fund Removes "Environmental Justice" As A Focal Point" was "More on Federal government environmental justice grants tomorrow, it's a lot of money."
I had planned to post a couple announcements from the Biden-Harris administration including this from April 2024: "Biden-Harris Administration Announces $20 Billion in Grants to Mobilize Private Capital and Deliver Clean Energy and Climate Solutions to Communities Across America" and this from December 2023: "Biden-Harris Administration Announces $600M to 11 Grantmakers to Fund Thousands of Environmental Justice Projects Across the Nation as Part of Investing in America Agenda"
And then we heard there might be more on this story coming out almost immediately, so we held off.
First up, from the Washington Post, originally headlined "Trump EPA chief accuses Biden of ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic’" which was actually a quote from an EPA honcho rather than the new EPA Admistrator, Lee Zeldin. The headline has since been changed to "EPA chief says Biden was ‘irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash,’ vows to get back $20 billion":
Lee Zeldin’s move to claw back $20 billion escalates President Donald Trump’s efforts to freeze federal money for climate projects.
In a video posted to X on Wednesday evening, Zeldin said the EPA would terminate its contract with the bank overseeing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established by former president Joe Biden’s signature 2022 climate law. The fund seeks to leverage public and private dollars to invest in clean-energy technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps and more.
Though he did not mention the bank by name, Citi had an agreement with the Biden administration to oversee the release of $20 billion under the program to nonprofit groups and states, according to publicly available documents.
“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” Zeldin said. “The American public deserves a more transparent and accountable government than what transpired these past four years.”
Citi spokesman Mark Costiglio declined to comment.
In announcing his decision, Zeldin cited a December video in which an EPA official said the Biden administration was “trying to get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all. … It truly feels like we’re on the Titanic and we’re throwing, like, gold bars off the edge.”
Project Veritas, a right-wing organization, recorded the video of Brent Efron, who served as a special assistant to the EPA associate administrator for policy. The organization often uses covert videos and false cover stories in an attempt to embarrass political officials and other targets.
“An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic, rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day,” Zeldin said. “The financial agent agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated, and the bank must immediately return all of the gold bars.”
Zeldin added that while “there is zero reason to suspect any wrongdoing by the bank,” he would refer the matter to the EPA Office of Inspector General. However, Trump ousted former EPA inspector general Sean O’Donnell last month in a late-night purge of more than a dozen of the independent agency watchdogs.
Asked to confirm whether the bank in question was Citi, EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said in a text message, “What does Administrator Zeldin say in the video?”
Zealan Hoover, who previously oversaw implementation of Biden’s climate law at the EPA, said in an interview that it is standard for the Treasury Department to reach financial agent agreements with banks. He noted that the arrangement was developed over the course of a year “with extensive input from career staff at EPA and Treasury,” and the EPA’s Office of Inspector General was briefed “to ensure robust oversight systems were in place.”
“Going back to the mid-1800s, Treasury has had the authority to set up private banks as financial agents of the Treasury,” Hoover added. “It was used to provide emergency covid-19 relief to airlines. It’s used for all sorts of transactions across the federal government where an agency needs to maintain oversight while providing more flexibility to leverage private partnerships.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-West Virginia), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised Zeldin’s move.
“The Biden administration wasted billions of taxpayer dollars through the IRA, and this attempt to avoid oversight and accountability was another abuse of power,” Capito wrote on X, using an acronym for the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s climate law.
The U.S. DOGE Service, billionaire Elon Musk’s initiative to slash the size of the federal government, also commended Zeldin on X for an “awesome job” on saving taxpayer money.
And from Bloomberg, also February 12, a slightly different framing:
EPA Seeking to Claw Back $20 Billion in Climate Law Grants
- Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund deploys solar panels, heat pumps
- News comes amid broader Republican scrutiny of IRA spending
The Environmental Protection Agency will attempt to claw back some $20 billion in funding for climate projects awarded under President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, administrator Lee Zeldin said Wednesday evening, saying the effort was a “scheme” without proper oversight.
“The financial agreement with the bank needs to be instantly terminated and the bank must immediately return all the” funds, Zeldin said in video post on X, referring to the lender that oversees the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. “EPA needs to re-assume responsibility for all of these funds.”
The fund, run by the EPA, received $27 billion in President Joe Biden’s signature climate law to help with the deployment of solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles. The program distributed some $20 billion in funds
last year to nonprofits, community development organizations, credit unions and housing agencies, and has earmarked an additional $7 billion for solar.
It’s been under scrutiny from Republicans after an EPA employee was caught on camera by the right-wing activist group Project Veritas comparing the funding to “throwing gold bars off the Titanic,” discussing the need to distribute the funding “as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all,” and characterizing the effort as “an insurance policy against Trump winning.”
While Zeldin conceded in his post that “there is zero reason to suspect any wrongdoing by the bank,” he said he planned to refer the matter to the EPA Office of Inspector General and would be consulting with the Department of Justice.
The effort, which is almost certain to draw legal challenges, comes amid broader scrutiny of the billions of dollars of Inflation Reduction Act subsidies by the Trump administration, which ordered a halt to the spending on President Donald Trump’s first day in office....
....MORE
As we said back in April 2023:
"EPA’s FY2024 Budget Request Emphasizes Continued Focus on Climate, Environmental Justice, and Infrastructure"
One of the hottest areas of funding this year and beyond will be for a Just Energy Transition.
We'll have more as the money tide comes rolling in but for now some background....
