The Environmental Protection Agency canceled two $20 million environmental justice grants that the Biden administration awarded to its own advisers, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. [emphasis, links added]
On Monday, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency’s latest round of grant cancellations and cost-cutting measures.
Included among the more than 400 canceled grants are two that the Biden administration awarded in December to Tennessee-based nonprofit Young, Gifted & Green and North Carolina-based nonprofit Democracy Green, a source familiar told the Free Beacon.
Both groups had connections to the Biden White House and EPA—and neither had handled such a substantial amount of money before securing the taxpayer funds.
Young, Gifted & Green received its $20 million environmental justice grant after its CEO—LaTricea Adams—personally applied for the funding while simultaneously serving as a member of a top White House environmental justice council, the Free Beacon reported last month.
The group has reported just $2.7 million in revenue—about 14 percent the size of the grant—since it registered as a nonprofit in 2020, tax filings show.
Democracy Green, meanwhile, received the $20 million to restore wetlands and remove lead pipes in hundreds of homes in North Carolina.
The group is a small mother-daughter operation that has never conducted wetlands restoration or lead pipe removals, the Free Beacon reported last week.
Last January, former EPA Administrator Michael Regan appointed the president of its board, La’Meshia Whittington, to his Local Government Advisory Committee. Months later, Whittington spoke alongside Regan at a policy forum.
The actions underscore the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Biden-era spending.
Zeldin has taken particular aim at green energy and environmental justice programs that the previous administration rushed to implement during its final weeks and months in office.
“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin said in a statement on Monday. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”
Both the grant awarded to Young, Gifted & Green and the grant given to Democracy Green were part of the $2 billion Climate Justice Community Change Program, which was established by Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and championed by former president Joe Biden and former EPA administrator Michael Regan.
The groups were among the 105 entities selected to receive funding under the program. The EPA received 2,801 applications requesting tens of billions of dollars in funding for the program.
According to the source familiar, Zeldin’s actions to cut Biden-era spending affect several other Climate Justice Community Change Program grants and grants awarded under eight other programs.
Those programs include the EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program and Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program.
In addition, Zeldin’s team located $20 billion the Biden administration awarded to eight nonprofits under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program parked at an outside financial institution.
The Department of Justice froze that funding while they and the FBI investigate the Biden administration’s implementation of that program.
Top photo by Vladimir Solomianyi on Unsplash
Read rest at Free Beacon
If the abuse documented in this article favored a conservative cause it would be in the headlines of the main stream media every day. Yet, the media is silent on this abuse.
Eco-Freaks always prefer Democrats to do their biding since the Dems are always the suckers for all sorts of small minded nutcases
Just amazing all the grift that was happening under the Biden administration. Glad that between DOGE shining a light on the grift and the heads of agencies lie the EPA and DOT are clawing this money back.