The outrageously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 and pumped $740 billion into mostly "alternative" energy production. Included in that porky pie was a gigantic slice of $27 billion that the Environmental Protection Agency called the "Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund."
In what might be one of those brazen recent examples of government waste, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund didn't reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases by so much as a molecule.
As The Free Press investigation of the fund discovered, "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.'”
In fact, the program failed to "revitalize anything," writes the Free Press, "except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials."
I recently wrote about this fund after it was revealed that a $2 billion grant was given to Power Forward Communities, an umbrella group that funded several radical green groups, including Rewiring America, an organization that featured perennial Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams as senior counsel.
At the time the $2 billion grant was awarded, Power Forward Communities had less than $100 in its bank account. How a non-profit with $100 in the bank was able to swing a $2 billion grant was a mystery — until now.
“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.”
On his way out of the White House before his term ended in January, Biden literally threw $20 billion in the direction of green non-profits and NGOs, according to The Free Press investigation. The $20 billion was given to only eight groups.
"We're just trying to get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and stop it all," Brent Efron of the Environmental Protection Agency told a Project Veritas undercover interviewer after last year's election. "It truly feels like we're on the Titanic. We're throwing gold bars off the edge."
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.
Even more outrageously, the two largest green groups who got ten-figure grants — Climate United fund ($6.9 billion) and Coalition for Green Capital ($5 billion), were empowered by the EPA to dole out this magnificent largesse to hundreds of smaller green groups who are supposed to do the ultimate work of reducing greenhouse gases.
Nothing in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund requires any oversight of those loans. You can imagine the crazy, cockamamie ideas for reducing greenhouse gases these jamokes will come up with to get their hands on some of that money.
“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.”
On his way out the door, Biden tried to "Trump-proof" the fund.
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.
It's been a long time since government corruption and cynicism were able to shock me. Remember that in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act, there was $3.1 trillion additional COVID aid that was rushed out the door with similar nonchalance and disregard for the safety of the people's purse.
Don't expect any heads to roll or prison sentences for those responsible. Accountability in government is dead.
