A week into his new job as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and Lee Zeldin discovered what he contends was a scheme by the Biden administration to dump billions of dollars into a financial institution to be quickly handed out to green energy businesses.
“This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight,” Zeldin said in a video statement posted online. He said he intends to claw back the billions.
He discovered $20 billion in clean energy grants awarded through the Greenhouse Gas Redution Fund, or as some call it the green bank. One report quoted an EPA spokesperson saying the Biden-Harris administration was ” “more worried with getting the money out the door before Inauguration Day than doing it the right way with proper financial management protocols, one of which being typical administrative set aside.”
According to the Associated Press, two initiatives, worth $14 billion and $6 billion respectively, are intended to offer competitive grants to nonprofits, community development banks and other groups for projects with a focus on disadvantaged communities.
One group outraged over Zeldin’s intentions to claw back the hidden funds is the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy. Its president and CEO Cheri Smith called it “an egregious attempt to undermine legally allocated funding” and “a direct attack on tribal sovereignty,” according to Tribal Business News.
Click here for Associated Press
