Lee Zeldin, new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says he is attempting to claw back upwards of $20 billion that was quietly doled out by the Biden administration in its final days under its “green bank” program. The funds were distributed to eight institutions that are tasked with handing out the cash to projects that work to mitigate climate change.
In a Feb. 15 press release, the EPA said that “the agency found $20 billion dollars parked at a financial institution by the Biden-Harris Administration to fund partisan pet projects.”
Zeldin, who in 2022 ran against Kathy Hochul for New York state governor, has called for the “immediate return” of the entire fund balance to the U.S.Treasury ”to ensure EPA oversight,” and added that he has referred the matter over to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and Congress.
Questions remain as to whether or not the Trump administration can legally claw back funds that were already obligated under the previous administration.
The discovery follows the release of a video by Project Veritas, that features a Biden staffer describing the final days of the Biden administration as “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.” It’s alleged that the Biden administration intentionally rushed out billions of tax dollars before inauguration day to “avoid oversight.”
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In conversation with the New York Post, Zeldin said that the issue was “on our radar during the transition,” after the video was posted online at the beginning of December.
Zeldin said, “To us, that very obviously meant the ‘gold bars’ were tax dollars and ‘off the Titanic’ meant they were wasting it — and they knew it.”
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‘Just the tip of the iceberg’
Zeldin said, “We have very high confidence that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“I committed during my hearing to making this a top priority as soon as I got in, and our team has been planning for what has been months now to be able to hit the ground running and jump all over this urgent situation the moment we came into office,” he said.
Zeldin is raising several questions concerning the massive sum of money, including if any recently employed Biden administration officials and EPA employees have taken up positions with one of the eight NGOs the money was pledged to.
“The $20 billion only goes to eight entities, and we want to know if any of those eight entities have any recently employed Biden administration officials and EPA employees,” Zeldin said.
He added that the first, and most urgent step in the investigation is ensuring the funds are returned to the EPA.
“We are going to seek it to be returned to the EPA, and the first step is establishing control of those funds.”
A number of other questions remain unanswered including how much has been sent out, how much has been obligated, and how much is currently available and not yet obligated, Zeldin said.
“These questions should all be instantly available and handy for us to have the answers on. They’re not,” he added.
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Grant cancelled
Among the NGOs the money was earmarked for is the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), which describes itself as “building a Just Transition away from extractive systems of production, consumption and political oppression” and believes that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.”
The Biden EPA sought to fund the CJA with $50 million from one of the agency’s “environmental justice” grant programs, a spokesperson representing the group told the Daily Caller.
However, the funds were not disbursed before President Trump and his administration took office in January.
The cancellation of the grant has been publicly linked to the CJA’s advocacy for a “free Palestine,” and its broader Palestine stances, which were highlighted in various posts on the social media platform X.
Trump’s administration criticized the allocation of funds to what it describes as politically motivated groups, suggesting that the money was being “irresponsibly shovelled” to activist organizations and pet projects of the Biden administration.
