A former Biden official whom EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin frequently cites as a primary example of nepotism in fact recused himself from making any decisions on grants that could have benefited his former employer, court filings show.
Jahi Wise designed and oversaw the development of EPA’s flagship green banking grant program in 2022 and 2023. Zeldin has charged repeatedly in interviews and on social media that Wise steered the program’s funding to his former employer, the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC).
“Jahi Wise left the Coalition for Green Capital to join the Biden [administration],” Zeldin wrote in a Feb. 20 post on X. “He then tossed his former employer $5 BILLION of your tax dollars. Corrupt at its core!”
EPA has cited Wise’s involvement to justify its attempts to freeze and then terminate Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund awards for eight nonprofits and nonprofit coalitions — including CGC. The agency is currently embroiled in litigation over whether it can claw back the $20 billion in grants currently held in awardees’ bank accounts at Citibank.
