|
2025-03-05 Government Corruption
|
|
A $20 Billion Slush Fund‐Paid by You to Progressive Nonprofits
|
[FreePress] The Department of Justice is investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was part of Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Created in the spring of 2023, and managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fund was supposed to be a "first-of-its-kind" program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing communities that it considered "historically left behind."
But it appears little of the $27 billion revitalized anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials.
"The Biden administration used so-called ’climate equity’ to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends," Lee Zeldin, the Trump administration’s new EPA administrator, told The Free Press. "It is my utmost priority to get a handle on every dollar that went out the door in this scheme and once again restore oversight and accountability over these funds. This rush job operation is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption."
A Free Press investigation reveals that of the $27 billion, $20 billion was rushed out the door to eight nonprofit groups after Kamala Harris lost the election—but before President Donald Trump took office. As one former EPA official put it on a secretly recorded video, it was akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic."
The eight groups were allocated sums ranging from $400 million to $6.9 billion. Several of them were formed in August of 2023, just one month after the grant applications went live in July of 2023, when it became clear that large nine- and 10-figure grants would be up for grabs. The boards and staff of these eight groups include Democratic donors, people with connections to the Obama and Biden administrations, and prominent Democrats like Stacey Abrams. (She was senior counsel for Rewiring America, which was set to receive $489 million from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.)
"These are some of the biggest grants to individual organizations in American history," said Judge Glock, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who wrote a book about federal bailouts.
Moreover, the eight groups, the biggest of which are the Climate United fund and Coalition for Green Capital, which received grants of $6.9 billion and $5 billion, respectively, have been empowered by the EPA to choose the hundreds of smaller nonprofit organizations across the country that will do the climate change work. They will get loans, not grants, which they are supposed to repay. There is nothing in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that calls for oversight of those loans.
"This clearly was intended from its beginning to be a slush fund," Glock told The Free Press. "The goal was to give them money with minimal strings and allow them to lend it to people they favored. It is an absolutely wild program. I haven’t seen the likes of in previous government-lending history."
In addition to asking the Justice Department to investigate the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Zeldin is also attempting to claw back the $20 billion, most of which resides in about 129 accounts at Citibank—accounts the Trump administration froze in February to try and prevent the groups from drawing on it. An EPA source told The Free Press that $3.1 billion was drawn down before the freeze took place, leaving $16.9 billion still residing at Citibank. The recipient accounts were set up between November and December 2024, after Election Day. (A Citibank spokesman declined to comment.)
This could prove difficult, however. According to a source familiar with the situation, the contracts with the eight groups contain a trigger clause that will cause the money to be immediately released if the Trump administration attempts to recoup it.
In the mainstream media, the events surrounding the investigation into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund have been characterized as another example of the Trump administration halting worthy climate change efforts—while running roughshod over the rule of law. When Denise Cheung, a veteran prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., was told to freeze the Citibank account and begin an investigation, she refused, saying there was not "sufficient evidence" to undertake such actions. In her resignation letter, she said that prosecutors were looking into the possibility of "conspiracy to defraud the United States," and "wire fraud." 
|
Posted by Besoeker 2025-03-05 08:22||
||
Front Page|| [11151 views ]
Top
|
|
Posted by Grom the Affective 2025-03-05 13:11||
2025-03-05 13:11||
Front Page
Top
|
|
Posted by Frank G 2025-03-05 13:42||
2025-03-05 13:42||
Front Page
Top
|
|
11:07 HeavyG
11:07 Angstrom
11:06 DarthVader
11:05 HeavyG
10:58 alanc
09:43 Mullah Richard
09:27 Warthog
09:11 Mercutio
09:07 AlmostAnonymous5839
08:52 Matt
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
|
