First Fox: Congressional Republicans are beginning to investigate a Biden-era Green Energy Grant Program that sent billions of funds to climate groups linked to Democrats and former President Joe Biden’s allies.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee GOP leader was awarded letters to eight nonprofit organizations from the $2 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) to seek responses to ensure that the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has followed conflict of interest protocols in the distribution of appropriate ethics and funds.
In February, the Trump administration’s EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin described the spending made through the GGRF as something like “throwing from a gold stick from the Titanic,” explaining that Biden officials were trying to get money through the door before Trump takes over.
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Flags flying at the headquarters of the US Environmental Protection Agency logo in Washington, DC (photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
It has also been revealed that $2 billion has been given to the power forward community Stacey Abrams Link Group. Meanwhile, during the first few months of Power Forward operation – before receiving the funds, the group reported that it had only $100 in revenue.
Another group that received the most money from GGRF, Climate United, has about $7 billion and now staffed a former Biden climate advisor who has worked for the past two years of his former president’s term. The same group is run by CEOs with ties to the Obama administration and board members invited to Biden’s signature ceremony in 2021 for his dozens of dollars of infrastructure bill.
Several GGRF grant recipients have been linked to Democrats and Biden advisors, some reportedly founded just before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, Zeldin said these groups had sole discretion over how the funds were used.
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Stacey Abrams is associated with a climate group granted $2 billion by the Biden administration. (Getty Images)
R-Ky. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, along with fellow committee member lawmakers, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, jointly stated in a statement from Republicans that the investigation of GGRF recipients was “key” to understand whether these funds are useful to the extent that they were “fair, fair and unequally used” for averthing and subject to “fair, fair and effective.”
“The committee has been concerned about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation, including concerns about the program’s unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in the selection of award recipients, and the ability of recipients to manage the large influx of federal dollars received from the EPA,” the lawmaker said in a statement.
“The recent monitoring and investigation subcommittee hearing that investigated these concerns, coupled with the speed at which money was pushed out the door by the Biden administration’s EPA, raised concerns for the committee and raised additional questions about recipients of certain greenhouse gas reduction funds.”
Lee Zeldin is sticking to efforts to regain funding for the Biden era EPA: “I’m not going to apologize.”
R-KY. House Energy and Commerce President Brett Guthrie, along with fellow committee members Gary Palmer, right, members of Morgan Griffith, R-Va, to help support the GGRF awardees, which has been funded. (Getty Images/Fox News)
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Several groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over attempts to regain funds.
Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chukkan issued a temporary restraining order that would prevent the EPA from freezing $14 billion in the GGRF fund awarded to three climate groups.
The Associate Press contributed to this report.
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