The Trump administration has ended $ 20 billion in funds for greenhouse gas reduction projects to a measure that climate defenders and Democrats say that money is assigned illegally assigned for clean energy and transport for disadvantaged communities.
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Lee Zeldin, had publicized his campaign to recover the money from the winter gas reduction fund, which Congress appropriated the Biden Administration to start projects aimed at curbing pollution.
In a statement on Tuesday night, the EPA said that it had recovered the funds, saying that the program did not align with the priorities of the agency, citing concerns with potential fraud, waste and abuse, although it did not give details or evidence of the accusations.
The measure is the last development in the EPA effort to recover funds that the Biden administration distributed last year to eight organizations that were chosen to administer subsidies from the winter reduction fund of an account in Citibank’s power, which has a financial agency agreement with the Treasury.
Zeldin has made the United States Department of Justice and FBI review the program.
The use of the FBI to investigate the fund has raised concerns with the Democratic legislators who said that the agencies have no reason to investigate Citibank or the beneficiaries of the subsidy.
“The financing process followed a centenary framework that is established transparently in a contract between Citibank and the Treasury department and was publicly announced in April 2024,” said Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in a letter to the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the director of the Federal Office of Research Kash Patel.
Whitehouse, who is the main Democrat in the Senate Environment Committee and in a judicial subcommittee of the Senate, said that officials did not have a “true basis to interfere with these properly appropriate and obliged funds.”
The EPA said it would work to use funds “with improved controls” within the law, but did not specifically say what would do with money.
“The EPA will be an exceptional administrator of the dollars of taxpayers dedicated to our central mission to protect human health and the environment, not a frivolous speaker on behalf of ‘Climate Equity’,” said Zeldin.
The Congress was assigned to the $ 20 billion through the 2022 inflation reduction law under Democratic President Joe Biden. Under his successor, Republican Donald Trump, EPA has tried to freeze funds related to climate change and environmental justice amid legal challenges.
During the weekend, the Defense Group of the United Climate Fund sued the Citibank of the EPA and Citigroup to retain the funds and break what it called a legally binding contractual agreement as an award -winning, saying that and seven other winners have not been able to access the money.
The US DC Court will hold an hearing of this case on Wednesday.
Environmental Justice
Separately, the EPA announced in an internal memorandum on Tuesday that it will close the Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights of the Agency, which focus on the minority and low -income communities that have been affected by air and water pollution, together with its 10 regional offices, as part of a broader reorganization of the agency.
The EPA had put employees in that administrative license office last month.
“Inneccessally in danger the health of our children, particularly in areas overloaded by pollution,” said Stephanie Reese, director of the Environmental Group of the Mother’s clean Air Force, and added that it contradicts the EPA mission.
