Biden admin hindered efforts to cancel grants to climate groups under criminal investigation

In the wake of President Donald Trump's landslide electoral victory, the Biden administration apparently reworked an Environmental Protection Agency grant agreement with an Obama administration staffer's climate alarmist group in order to make it difficult for the incoming administration to reclaim a $7 billion award.

Climate United Fund, one of the recipients of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program that is now under criminal investigation and getting axed by the Trump EPA, is now apparently exploiting that strategic hindrance in a desperate effort to get its hands on the money promised by the Biden administration.

Background

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency announced the discovery last month that the Biden administration parked roughly $20 billion at Citibank as part of a climate-branded scheme created under the Inflation Reduction Act that was "purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight" for the benefit of fellow travelers.

The agency indicated on March 2 that it was cooperating with the Department of Justice and FBI's ongoing criminal investigation into the matter and that it had also referred the "concerning matter of financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and oversight failures" in the GGRF program to the EPA's Office of Inspector General.

One of the intended recipients of the funds was a new nonprofit linked to staunch Biden ally Stacey Abrams, the failed gubernatorial candidate who sided with alleged domestic terrorists in 2023 and was slapped in January with what the Georgia State Ethics Commission indicated was likely "the largest Ethics Fine ever imposed by any State Ethics Commission in the country related to an election and campaign finance case."

The Abrams-linked nonprofit, Power Forward Communities, was awarded a $2 billion grant last year as part of the GGRF program despite being just a few months old and having no history of competently managing funds.

Daniel Turner, founder and executive director of the energy advocacy organization Power the Future, told Blaze News that the obligation of billions of taxpayer dollars to PFC and other brand-new climate groups with minimal or no track records of accomplishments "screams corruption and is absolutely worthy of IRS and DOJ investigations."

'EPA has determined that these deficiencies pose an unacceptable risk to the efficient and lawful execution of this grant.'

"I've always enjoyed the show 'Shark Tank,' and since I spend about half my life on the road and I'm in hotels a lot, it's kind of my go-to program to watch at nighttime," said Turner. "The sharks always ask about earnings before they make an investment, and that's usually where they will decide what they're going to do. Stacey Abrams' group had received $100 in donations and then got a $2 billion grant. The math tells me that that is a 20 million-times earnings investment. I've never never seen a shark make an investment at 20 million times earnings."

"It shows you the frivolity of the people in these agencies, the true political nature of grant-making, and it also explains the ire these folks have towards Elon Musk and DOGE — the ire that's turned into complete violence," continued Turner. "This is their lifeblood, and it's being taken away from them, but it never should have been theirs to begin with."

Climate United Fund's money troubles

Climate United Fund, an organization formed in 2024 and led by Beth Bafford, a former special assistant in the Obama administration's Office of Management and Budget, similarly planned to ride the last gravy train out of the Biden administration.

According to court documents, the FBI recommended that Citibank freeze CUF's account in late February, citing "credible information" that it was among a number of accounts that had "been involved in possible criminal violations" including wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

On March 4, the Treasury Department directed Citibank not to disburse funds from the GGRF accounts, including that belonging to CUF, citing the EPA's "concerns regarding potential fraud and/or conflicts of interest related to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund."

When it discovered that it couldn't drain its slush fund and that it might not ultimately receive any of its $6.97 billion GGRF award, CUF — like other groups impacted by the EPA's funding freeze and grant terminations — filed a lawsuit on March 8 against both the EPA and Citibank, alleging that the "EPA has acted to prevent Citibank from dispersing [sic] funds, harming Climate United, its borrowers, and the communities they serve."

The EPA, which proved willing to battle it out in the court, subsequently notified the plaintiffs that it was terminating their grants, stating that "following a comprehensive review and consistent with multiple ongoing independent federal investigations into programmatic fraud, waste, abuse, and conflicts of interest ... EPA has determined that these deficiencies pose an unacceptable risk to the efficient and lawful execution of this grant."

'They're just fighting for their own entity's survival because they don't want to get a real job.'

According to the grant agreement between the climate groups and the EPA, the awards can be terminated only if:

• "a grant recipient engages in 'substantial' noncompliance such that 'effective performance' is 'materially impaired'";
• "a recipient engages in 'material misrepresentation of eligibility status'"; or
• "for 'waste, fraud, or abuse.'"

An Obama judge ruled Tuesday that the EPA could not reclaim the Biden-era grants. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan did not, however, enable CUF and other climate alarmist groups to withdraw the billions of taxpayer dollars they believe they are owed.

The climate groups' efforts to get their hands on the taxpayer funds have dragged some questionable details about the grants into the light.

EPA's diminished agency

Sarah Bedford of the Washington Examiner highlighted that a month after Trump crushed Kamala Harris at the polls, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency amended its grant agreement with Climate United Fund, making it harder to revoke the award.

Eric Amidon, chief of staff of the EPA, noted in a Monday court filing that the agency's grant agreement with CUF originally issued in August did not "define the terms 'materially impaired' or 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' and used the terms in a manner that left EPA with significant discretion to administer the agreement." However, Amidon noted that in December 2024, the EPA issued an amended grant agreement to CUF that altered its compliance and termination provisions and defined the above terms.

As a consequence of the changes, the EPA effectively lost its contractual authority "to find CUF in immediate noncompliance for failing to report the expenditure of grant funds, audit results, and project status"; "to oversee subrecipient compliance with statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements"; and to spend grant funds only on allowable activities," said Amidon.

Amidon also indicated that the Biden administration's post-election definitions for "materially impaired" and "waste, fraud, and abuse" further tied the EPA's hands, restricting the agency's ability to terminate the award "absent evidence of severe criminal or civil violations."

Climate United Fund has leaned on the agreement in its lawsuit against the EPA and Citibank.

"This is absolutely intentional," Turner told Blaze News, referring to the broader alleged "gold bars" plot. "This was all very deliberate in preparation for what the Trump administration would do."

Brent Efron, a former EPA special adviser for implementation, was caught on hidden camera before Trump took office claiming that the agency was dumping billions of dollars in grants to nonprofits to make sure the Biden administration's climate initiatives remained afloat even after the Democrats lost their footing in the White House.

"Now it's how to get the money out as fast as possible before they [Trump administration] come in," said Efron. "It's like we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge."

"In the grants process, grants can always be amended by the grantor. I deal with donors who want to fund certain projects, and circumstances change, and therefore the nature of the grant changes. That's understandable," said Turner. "But it's never been about an election, and that's the only criteria that changed with some of these groups that were awarded grants — Trump was now going to be president. And so it does raise a larger question: What was the grant ever about? What was the grant's nature? Because if it was combatting racial disparities in the climate space or whatever the phraseology they used, none of that has changed. Only thing that changed was the political circumstances, and so changing the grant based on politics sort of de facto proves that the nature of the grant is purely political."

Turner suggested that the groups now fighting over the frozen slush fund are "fighting for the quality of life that the taxpayers were awarding them. They're not fighting for groups. They're not fighting for maligned or marginalized individuals. They're just fighting for their own entity's survival because they don't want to get a real job."

Blaze News reached out to the EPA for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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