Once a central plank of the Biden-Harris administration’s climate agenda, the White House’s enormous environmental justice (EJ) spending programs are instead rife with “cronyism,” according to a new report from the House Energy & Commerce Committee.
The Inflation Reduction Act’s EJ programs routed billions in taxpayer dollars to the Environmental Protection Agency, which was then supposed to grant those funds to nonprofits working to protect the environment in underserved communities.
Instead, the program has given huge amounts of money to deep-pocketed environmental nonprofit organizations (ENGOs) pursuing radical climate policies that align with some of the Biden administration’s more fringe positions. In some instances, funds were directed back to organizations serving on the White House’s own EJ steering committee, raising concerns about self-dealing.
Let’s dive in:
- EJ grant recipients pushed for LNG pause, gas stove ban
The House report shows that the EPA granted hundreds of millions of dollars to well-funded ENGOs that supported critical elements of the Biden-Harris administration’s most radical climate policies. For example, WE ACT – an environmental justice organization that received a $10 million grant from EPA to operate a technical assistance center to help other nonprofits access EPA grants – advertises fighting natural gas infrastructure and gas stoves among its key policy priorities.
The activist groups aren’t strapped for cash, as the Daily Caller pointed out, and yet still receive millions in taxpayer dollars to support fringe positions:
“The use of taxpayer funds to support these activist groups, some of which already receive considerable financial support from large environmentalist outfits like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Energy Foundation, is arguably ‘akin to a taxpayer-funded lobbying operation,’ the lawmakers argue in the report.”
Other ENGOs benefiting from EPA grants support phasing out electric vehicles, obstructing pipeline construction, and ending offshore leasing regardless of the impacts these efforts have on consumer costs.
- Biden-Harris EJ advisers direct grants to themselves
To help get an unprecedented amount of money out the door in a short time frame, the EPA created a pass-through program whereby it gives bulk grants to private sector partners, which then disburse EJ grants to community organizations.
However, this has created obvious opportunities for self-dealing and limited oversight of the EJ grant program. In August, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the Biden-Harris administration had granted at least $400 million to its own EJ advisers through the regranting program:
“In total, four leading environmental justice organizations—WE ACT for Environmental Justice, the Bullard Center for Environmental & Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, and Kean University’s Center for the Urban Environment—have been awarded a staggering $229 million in Environmental Protection Agency grants and have been named as partners to grantees awarded another $200 million.
“Leaders of those groups serve on the White House’s so-called Environmental Justice Advisory Council, which is formally housed at EPA, the same agency doling out the grants.” (emphasis added)
The Free Beacon reported that all but one of the regranting partners above are affiliated with Michael Bloomberg’s Beyond Petrochemicals initiative, an $85 million dollar campaign to stop the buildout of petrochemical infrastructure across the country. Moreover, the White House’s EJ Council is co-chaired by a far-left activist whose organizations were previously surveilled by the FBI.
- Proper use of funds is unclear, says EPA Inspector General
The Committee pointed out that the IRA’s climate and environmental justice programs more than quadrupled the EPA’s budget without increasing its oversight and audit capabilities, creating even more room for waste, fraud, and abuse.
At a September House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing, EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell admitted to the Committee that EPA is not adequately tracking where the enormous amount of money is going and whether grants are being used their intended purpose.
For example, grants for targeted community air monitoring efforts should not be used for general anti-fossil fuel activism – but the sheer volume of money and the use of passthroughs makes oversight and enforcement extremely difficult.
O’Donnell detailed a contentious relationship between EPA and its top independent watchdog, describing “instances where the EPA is aware of attempts to defraud them or actually defraud them and instead of bringing those to our attention, they ignore them or will wait for many months.”
Responding to questions from members regarding whether the Inspector General’s office is able to track grants distributed through passthroughs, O’Donnell conceded that while his office has the authorities, but not the capacity, to do so.
Bottom Line: A new House committee report shows that the Biden-Harris administration’s environmental justice grant programs are plagued by waste, fraud, abuse, and self-dealing. Forthcoming Inspector General audits of the EPA’s IRA-funded electric school bus and air monitoring programs may shed additional light on radical activists’ taxpayer-funded spending spree.
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