Escalating its crusade against government programs that include DEI principles, the White House is trying to claw back some $20 billion in federal funds that Congress set aside for climate-justice nonprofits to help underserved communities deal with the effects of global warming.
The nonprofits, however, are fighting back. They have sued the administration, arguing that Congress authorized the money specifically to helping vulnerable neighborhoods, most of them Black and brown, under a Biden-era climate change plan.
Upping the ante, the White House has ordered several of the nonprofits to submit a variety of documents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation — including records of all communications they’ve had with the Environmental Protection Agency, along with detailed information about their organizations.
Climate Equity is “Over”
How the conflicts between the EPA and the climate justice nonprofits are resolved, though, could determine whether low-income, mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods — already hit harder by floods, heat waves and other extreme, potentially deadly weather events than wealthier neighborhoods — will get the help they need, or face even greater danger as climate change continues.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has made it clear where the White House stands.
“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a video release in February.
At issue is federal grant money intended to fund community-based climate mitigation projects across the country. The money came from the Biden Administration through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program established through the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature legislation to address climate change.
The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.
EPA Administrator lee zeldin
The $20 billion was paid to eight nonprofits in coordination with the Treasury Department and Citibank, where the grantee’s accounts are held. The nonprofits would in turn use the money to fund
The fund was required to follow Justice40, another Biden program that established that at least 40 percent of all climate investments would go directly to communities on the frontline of climate change. Because of that policy, a sizeable portion of the $20 billion would be spent on low-income communities across the country, which are disproportionately Black and Latino .
But the Trump administration has turned targeted investment for largely minority communities into a cudgel — one that Zeldin is avidly swinging. He considers nonprofit organizations like Rewire America, a grant recipient that electrifies low-income household systems and appliances, as radical.
Speaking to The Free Press about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, Zeldin disparaged it and any targeted help for communities climate change will hurt the most. He said the Biden administration “used so-called ‘climate equity’ to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends.”
But it isn’t just Zeldin’s rhetoric that has escalated.
This weekend, Politico reported that at least two of the eight GGRF grant recipients received letters requesting that a variety of documents be submitted to the FBI within two weeks. The requested materials include records of all communications with the EPA, transactions related to GGRF and sub-grant recipients as well as detailed information about the organization: articles of incorporation, information about boards of directors, and more.
Grants Remain Frozen
Meanwhile, the grants in question have been frozen for three weeks. Climate United, waiting to collect nearly $7 billion from GGRF, sued the EPA and Citibank, where the funds remain frozen.
Beth Bafford, Climate United’s CEO, said in a statement that her organization filed suit “for the communities we serve — not because we want to, but because we have to.”
Because the grants were completed and the money transferred to a private bank, odds are good the courts will side with Climate United and the other climate justice nonprofits. But Zeldin’s rhetoric is similar to when he cancelled a $50 million grant for Climate Justice Alliance because of its support for Palestine in the Gaza War. That grant was never paid out.
