EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin excoriated news outlets Monday for reporting that EPA hasn’t offered evidence to support his assertions that billions of dollars in climate grants are marked by waste, fraud and abuse.
“There are some members of the media who have dug in further into saying that ‘there’s no evidence,’” he told reporters Monday. “Every time a new piece of evidence comes out, there’s some in the media saying, even with more conviction, that there’s no evidence.”
Zeldin has claimed for two months in social media posts and in press appearances that $20 billion in programs within the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — which was authorized in 2022 to expand lending for renewable energy and zero-carbon buildings and transportation — is so riddled with graft that the only remedy is for the government to cancel the grants and take the money back. But a federal judge handling the case has criticized the agency for failing to cite any evidence of wrongdoing by the grantees administering the program.
EPA declared in March that it had terminated awards to eight nonprofits that were selected by the Biden administration to run two programs within the fund. The agency is now embroiled in litigation that will determine whether Zeldin’s move to cancel the program was legal and whether the Trump administration should be allowed to retrieve the remaining money — about $17 billion in climate funding that was frozen by the Trump administration on Feb. 18.
Zeldin on Monday recapped pieces of “evidence” that EPA has floated since February to argue that the grants deserve to be terminated.
He noted, for example, that two of the eight nonprofits that were awarded billions of dollars last year were established in 2023 for the purpose of competing to run one of the climate programs.
The groups’ newness, he argued, made them “unqualified.”
Zeldin also pointed to how the Biden administration amended agreements with the nonprofits as recently as January — which he argued was an attempt to circumvent Trump administration oversight. And he objected to how several nonprofits or their parent institutions had Democratic power players on their boards or former staff within the ranks of the Biden administration, including at EPA. Zeldin argued that that shows how the program was tarnished by “self-dealing and conflicts of interest.”
“How is that zero evidence?” he asked.
Zeldin also faulted U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s opinion last week that ordered EPA and Citibank — where the money is being held for the grant awardees — to temporarily release funds. He argued that she, too, had “ignored” his purported evidence of grantee malfeasance when granting the injunction.
“Nowhere in it does it acknowledge anything that I just said,” he told reporters. “It doesn’t even acknowledge it.”
Chutkan, who is an Obama appointee, wrote in her opinion that EPA’s grantmaking regulations allow it to unilaterally terminate awards only if there is “adequate evidence of waste, fraud and abuse.”
“And as this court has already pointed out, EPA Defendants have never proffered this ‘adequate evidence,’” Chutkan wrote.
Her order was stayed on Thursday by an appellate court, which is now expected to decide in the next week whether the grants will remain frozen until litigation concludes.
EPA lawyers claim authority, not ‘evidence’
EPA’s first filing in the case — which was written by the agency’s chief of staff, Eric Amidon, a former aide to Zeldin when he was in Congress — contained many of the claims Zeldin outlined Monday. Amidon referred to a video taken surreptitiously last year by the conservative group Project Veritas showing a Biden administration staffer comparing EPA’s rush to finalize various climate grants with throwing “gold bars off the Titanic.”
“If I was in a court of law, and I played the video of the Biden political appointee saying that they’re throwing gold bars off the Titanic, that would be considered evidence of … waste and abuse,” Zeldin, who is an attorney, said Monday.
But the Justice Department lawyers representing EPA in court aren’t doing that — which might explain why Chutkan’s 39-page opinion on Thursday didn’t respond to those arguments.
The government lawyers have acknowledged in court hearings and legal filings that despite ongoing investigations by the Justice Department and EPA’s inspector general, they haven’t yet found evidence of violations by the grantees. The DOJ legal team instead argued that EPA has the right to terminate grants that aren’t aligned with administration policy, and any challenges to those decisions fall under the jurisdiction of federal claims courts, not the district court.
Those claims are what the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals will have to grapple with as it weighs whether EPA has the authority to terminate the grants and recover unspent funds.
The decision on the merits of the case isn’t expected until May or June, at the earliest. Before that, the appellate court will decide whether the grantees can access federal funds to cover expenses they’ve incurred since mid-February, when EPA and Citibank froze the accounts. EPA has said in court filings that the groups have requested $625 million.
Chutkan’s injunction last week would also allow the nonprofits to draw down funds to cover expenses out two weeks into the future until a decision is issued in the case, allowing them to implement some part of their work plans going forward.
EPA and Citibank submitted briefs over the weekend asking the appeals court not to release the funds. The grantees are expected to submit their own brief to the court Tuesday, and EPA could file its motion Wednesday. A decision on whether to release the funding could come anytime after that. The appellate court has the discretion to issue a decision that stops short of Chutkan’s order but still offers awardees some protection — and possibly some funds.
The two groups that were created by nonprofits in 2023 to compete for the climate grants have both stated in court filings that their continued existence depends on accessing the money they were awarded soon. Climate United Fund, which was awarded nearly $7 billion, and Power Forward Communities, which was awarded $2 billion, have both said that without the funds they may cease operating before litigation concludes.
On Monday, the Opportunity Finance Network, an established nonprofit that was awarded funds under the program, sued EPA for freezing the money. Six of the eight grantees have now filed lawsuits, and the remaining two — Appalachian Community Capital and Native CDFI Network, may soon follow.
The ranking Democrats of two House and Senate committees wrote to EPA on Monday demanding that it end its “unprecedented and defamatory assault” on the climate program.
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of the Environment and Public Works Committee and New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone of the Energy and Commerce Committee accused EPA of “unlawfully weaponizing the federal government in an inexplicable effort to deprive hardworking Americans of low-cost financing that will help them lower their energy bills, make their communities more resilient, and generate good local jobs.”
Other climate grants
In another dispute over frozen climate money, the administration and a coalition of conservation groups and other nonprofits have until noon Wednesday to file a status report with a federal judge in Rhode Island who last week ordered the government to unfreeze grants that were awarded under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act or the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Despite the ruling from Judge Mary McElroy of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island, the coalition told the court Sunday that much of the funding “remains frozen and inaccessible.”
McElroy held a closed door hearing Monday and asked the parties to deliver her a status report Wednesday. She said she will hold another hearing Wednesday, if needed.
The judge, who’s a Trump appointee, last week chastised the administration for withholding the money. She wrote that “agencies do not have unlimited authority to further a president’s agenda.”
But the plaintiffs in the case said over the weekend that the agencies, including EPA, “did not explain when they expected to come into compliance, or even describe the means by which they will do so.”
The groups said all of the grants that were inaccessible when McElroy issued a preliminary injunction order remain frozen, with a single exception: a grant from the National Park Service.
Lesley Clark contributed to this report.
