(Bloomberg) — The Environmental Protection Agency said it’s terminating $20 billion in grants awarded through a green bank program established under former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law.
The money is part of a $27 billion pool and awarded to community development organizations and other nonprofits, credit unions, housing agencies and solar energy projects. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claims that the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund is part of a “scheme” administered by the previous administration without proper oversight.
In a statement Tuesday, the agency said it had notified recipients of awards from the fund that their grant agreements for climate-related projects were being terminated after a review identified “material deficiencies which pose an unacceptable risk to the lawful execution of these grants.”
“This termination is based on substantial concerns regarding the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) program integrity, the award process, programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse, and misalignment with agency’s priorities, which collectively undermine the fundamental goals and statutory objectives of the award,” according to the statement, which did not provide evidence for the accusations.
The program came 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 urgency of distributing the money “as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all,” and characterizing the effort as “an insurance policy against Trump winning.”
The EPA said it would work to “re-obligate lawfully appropriated funds in the GGRF with enhanced controls to ensure adequate governance, transparency, and accountability, consistent with statutory requirements.”
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