The Trump administration has ended $20 billion in funding for greenhouse gas reduction projects in a move that climate advocates and Democrats say illegally seizes money allocated for clean energy and transportation for disadvantaged communities.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin had publicised his campaign to claw back money from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which Congress appropriated under the Biden administration to kick-start projects aimed at curbing pollution.
In a statement late on Tuesday, the EPA said it had clawed back the funds, saying the programme did not align with the agency’s priorities, citing concerns with potential fraud, waste and abuse, although it gave no details or evidence for the allegations.
The move is the latest development in the EPA’s effort to take back funding that the Biden administration distributed last year to eight organisations that were chosen to administer grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund from an account held by Citibank, which holds a financial agency agreement with the Treasury.
Zeldin has gotten the US Justice Department and the FBI to review the programme.
The use of the FBI to investigate the fund has raised concerns with Democratic lawmakers who said the agencies have no grounds to probe Citibank or the grant recipients.
“The funding process followed a centuries-old framework that is set out transparently in a contract between Citibank and the Department of the Treasury and was announced publicly in April 2024,” Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Whitehouse, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee and on a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, said the officials did not have a “true basis to interfere with these properly appropriated and obligated funds”.
The EPA said it would work to use the funds “with enhanced controls” within the law but did not say specifically what it would do with the money.
“EPA will be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars dedicated to our core mission of protecting human health and the environment, not a frivolous spender in the name of ’climate equity,” Zeldin said.
Congress appropriated the $20bn through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under Democratic President Joe Biden. Under his successor, Republican Donald Trump, the EPA has sought to freeze funding related to climate change and environmental justice amid legal challenges.
Over the weekend, the Climate United Fund advocacy group sued the EPA and Citigroup’s Citibank for withholding the funds and breaking what it called a legally binding contractual agreement as an awardee, saying it and seven other recipients have been unable to access the money.
The US District Court of DC will hold a hearing of this case on Wednesday.
Environmental justice
Separately, the EPA announced in an internal memo on Tuesday that it will shutter the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, which focus on minority and low-income communities that have been hard hit by air and water pollution, along with its 10 regional offices, as part of a broader reorganisation of the agency.
The EPA had put staffers in that office on administrative leave last month.
“It needlessly endangers the health of our children, particularly in areas overburdened by pollution,” said Stephanie Reese, a director at the Mom’s Clean Air Force environmental group, adding that it contradicts the EPA’s mission.
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