Latest news with #GGRF
E&E News
4 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
House Republicans see ‘massive grift' in EPA climate grants
Republicans tore into the EPA green bank program Wednesday as part of a 'massive grift' and 'revolving door' that directs taxpayer money to Democratic causes and groups. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program created by the Inflation Reduction Act, was a main focus of a hearing meant to example nonprofit organizations that get federal money. It was in the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, the panel formed to further the causes of the Elon Musk-founded U.S. DOGE Service, also known as the 'Department of Government Efficiency.' Advertisement Musk's relationship with Republicans is now strained over his criticism of the party's tax megabill, a fact Democrats pointed out frequently in Wednesday's hearing.
Business Insider
19-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
How Trump's EPA wrecking ball could also damage new housing
President Donald Trump has dismantled federal agencies and slashed spending as he's pledged to " gut the weaponized deep state." He has also vowed to ease the housing shortage across the nation. One promise may come at the expense of the other in the case of one agency's retrenchment. In February, his administration sought to take back $20 billion awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency during Joe Biden's presidency to fund decarbonization projects around the country. The head of the EPA has justified the clawback attempt with unproven accusations that the grants were marred by "programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse." As a result, tens of thousands of new apartments and houses that were expected to be financed with a portion of the EPA money are now in danger of not being built, nonprofit groups who were granted the funding say. Climate United, a coalition that received roughly $7 billion of the money — known as the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund — is suing the EPA along with other awardees over the withheld funding. The nonprofit estimates that about 30,000 single-family homes and another 30,000 apartment units were to be built with some of the funds that it and another group were set to administer. "There's a significant part of the strategy focused on building not only new housing but new affordable and workforce housing," Beth Bafford, the CEO of Climate United, said. There are varied estimates on how many new homes are needed in the US. Freddie Mac, a mortgage lending agency, calculated recently that the country is short about 3.7 million units. While the tens of thousands of homes that might be built with money from the GGRF would be just a small contribution toward that huge need, the fund's proponents say the money would go to a particularly impactful segment of the market. Bafford said that the focus of the GGRF money was on housing development projects in a part of the market with a lack of private sector financing options: affordable projects using energy-efficient systems and materials that are environmentally sustainable while helping mitigate utility costs for residents. "We see massive gaps in the financial markets, and this program was built to address some of those gaps," Bafford said. A spokesperson for Climate United said it had "disbursed $25 million in loans and committed over $500 million in loans before the EPA terminated our grant agreement without warning." "Unlike the Biden-Haris administration, this EPA is committed to being an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars," an unnamed spokesperson from the EPA responded in an email. The spokesperson said the GGRF's termination was "based on substantial concerns" over its "integrity, the award process, and programmatic waste and abuse, which collectively undermine the fundamental goals and statutory objectives of the award." Some developers are already feeling the impact The impacts of the freeze have already been felt by some developers. Megan Lasch, the chief executive of O-SDA Industries, a for-profit builder of affordable housing based in Austin, said the EPA's clawback attempt made her reshuffle a portion of the financing package she had been arranging for a 90-unit affordable apartment project her firm is developing in Fort Worth, Texas. The roughly $37 million development involves renovating 801 West Shaw St., a historic building with 45 rental apartments, erecting an additional 45 units on land adjacent to the property, and building a pre-K facility. Lasch said she had arranged to use some $3 million of GGRF money for the project from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a member of Power Forward Communities, a coalition that received $2 billion of the EPA money. When the GGRF money was held up, Lasch said that she found a replacement loan but that the new funding is more costly, carrying a roughly 4.5% interest rate versus the GGRF loan's roughly 1% rate. "The patch was not pretty," Lasch said, adding that affordable housing projects often have thin margins and require deeply discounted financing to work. "There's going to be ultimately a lot of projects that will just go by the wayside because they're not able to come up with a patch." The 801 West Shaw St. building is set to offer rents that are affordable for residents who earn between 30% and 60% of the area's median income, Lasch said. Damon Burns, the CEO of Finance New Orleans, a public trust that helps fund and develop affordable housing in its namesake city, said that his organization had been allocated $5 million from the Coalition for Green Capital, which received $5 billion of GGRF money from the EPA. Finance New Orleans was seeking to use about $1 million of that $5 million it was to receive in combination with $1.5 million of other funds it holds to build six or seven new homes with net-zero emissions. Using GGRF money to augment his organization's funding pipeline to build more housing was a model that Burns said he had hoped to scale. He said the prospect of having the GGRF money withdrawn was daunting because New Orleans is "already a financially constrained city." "There is a huge concern that the disinvestment of the federal government will have an impact on all of our communities," Burns said. "It means less mortgages for homeowners. It means less capital for developers." A climate-focused financing initiative The GGRF was created with $27 billion of federal funds from the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed in 2022. Some $20 billion of that amount was awarded to Climate United, Power Forward Communities, the Coalition for Green Capital, and other groups for various climate-focused financing initiatives. The remaining $7 billion went toward a federal program to fund residential solar energy installation projects. In December, Project Veritas, a conservative media organization, published a video that showed a former EPA official suggesting that the agency, under Biden, had fast-tracked its award of the money in anticipation that the incoming Trump administration might seek to scuttle the program. In the video, the official said: "It truly feels like we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge." Lee Zeldin, a former Long Island, New York, congressman whom Trump appointed as the head of the EPA in January, cited the video as evidence of misconduct in the allocation of the funds. "One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars," Zeldin said in a video posted on his X account in February. "The 'gold bars' were your tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it." Zeldin has ordered the termination of the GGRF. In March, Climate United sued the EPA and Citibank, the financial intermediary for the $20 billion, in the federal district court in Washington, DC, over their refusal to release the money. Power Forward and the Coalition for Green Capital have joined the suit. The EPA lost the initial argument for the case but has brought its complaint to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where it won a preliminary order in April to freeze the money as its appeal is being considered. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday. 'Every single project in the country is looking for gap funding' While Climate United estimated that terminating the GGRF would put roughly 60,000 homes at risk, other parties involved in the financing program say that number could be even greater. There has been a sharp increase in the number of housing developers interested in tapping financing from the GGRF, said Shaun Donovan, the president and CEO of the nonprofit housing lender Enterprise Community Partners. He was a secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration. Donovan attributed that interest to growing construction costs from inflation and tariffs, which have driven up the price of building materials. Those overruns have punched holes in the budgets of a host of development projects that builders have scrambled to fill. "Every single project in the country is looking for gap funding," Donovan said. "What this GGRF money can do is to be that last dollar in, right? So even if it's only 5% or 10% of the project." A spokesperson for Enterprise said that it had received inquiries for about $1.2 billion of financing in recent months for a collection of projects totaling 18,426 units. "My concern is that what this and other efforts to cut housing programs will do is make it impossible for the president to meet his goal of reducing housing costs," Donovan said.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in Congress are launching a probe into a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent billions in funding to climate groups tied to Democrats and former President Joe Biden's allies. GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to the eight nonprofits awarded grants from the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), seeking answers to ensure the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed proper ethics and conflict of interest protocols in distributing the funds. In February, the Trump administration's EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back, citing concerns over a lack of oversight related to how the money was being disbursed. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic," because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over. Epa Administrator Rolls Back 31 Biden-era Regulations It was also revealed that $2 billion from GGRF went to a Stacy Abrams-linked group, Power Forward Communities, which had not been established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process. Meanwhile, during Power Forward's first few months of operations — prior to receiving the funding — the group reported just $100 in revenue. Climate United, another group that received the most money from the GGRF, roughly $7 billion, currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president's term. The same group is also run by a CEO with ties to the Obama administration and a board member who was among those invited to Biden's signing ceremony for his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021. Read On The Fox News App Several GGRF grant recipients have ties to Democrats and Biden advisors, and some were reportedly founded shortly before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, these groups, according to Zeldin, had sole discretion on how to use the funds. Comer Probes Ngos That Received $20B In Biden Epa Grants Despite Almost No Revenue: 'Shady Deal' House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., alongside fellow committee members Reps. Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that their investigation into the GGRF recipients will be "key" to understanding whether these funds were allocated "fairly and impartially to qualified applicants," while also helping to determine the manner in which the money has been used. "The Committee has had concerns about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation—including concerns about the program's unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in selecting award recipients, and the recipients' ability to manage the large influx of federal dollars they received from the EPA," the lawmakers said in their statement. "A recent Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing that examined these concerns coupled with the speed with which money was pushed out the door by the Biden Administration's EPA heightened the Committee's concerns and raised additional questions about certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients." Lee Zeldin Stands Firm On Efforts To Claw Back Biden-era Epa Funding: 'I'm Not Going To Apologize' Several of the groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over its attempts to rake back the funds. Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order preventing the EPA from freezing $14 billion in GGRF funds awarded to three of the climate article source: SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
Fox News
11-04-2025
- Business
- Fox News
SCOOP: Biden-era grant program described as 'gold bar' scheme by Trump EPA administrator under scrutiny
FIRST ON FOX: Republicans in Congress are launching a probe into a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent billions in funding to climate groups tied to Democrats and former President Joe Biden's allies. GOP leaders on the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to the eight nonprofits awarded grants from the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), seeking answers to ensure the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed proper ethics and conflict of interest protocols in distributing the funds. In February, the Trump administration's EPA announced it would take steps to get the money back, citing concerns over a lack of oversight related to how the money was being disbursed. In the announcement, new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin cited comments from a former Biden EPA political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to "tossing gold bars off the Titanic," because Biden officials were allegedly trying to get money out the door before Trump took over. It was also revealed that $2 billion from GGRF went to a Stacy Abrams-linked group, Power Forward Communities, which had not been established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process. Meanwhile, during Power Forward's first few months of operations – prior to receiving the funding – the group reported just $100 in revenue. Climate United, another group that received the most money from the GGRF, roughly $7 billion, currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president's term. The same group is also run by a CEO with ties to the Obama administration and a board member who was among those invited to Biden's signing ceremony for his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021. Several GGRF grant recipients have ties to Democrats and Biden advisors, and some were reportedly founded shortly before or after the Biden administration announced the program. Meanwhile, these groups, according to Zeldin, had sole discretion on how to use the funds. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., alongside fellow committee members Reps. Gary Palmer of Alabama and Morgan Griffith of Virginia, both Republicans, said in a joint statement that their investigation into the GGRF recipients will be "key" to understanding whether these funds were allocated "fairly and impartially to qualified applicants," while also helping to determine the manner in which the money has been used. "The Committee has had concerns about the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program since its creation—including concerns about the program's unusual structure, a potential lack of due diligence in selecting award recipients, and the recipients' ability to manage the large influx of federal dollars they received from the EPA," the lawmakers said in their statement. "A recent Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing that examined these concerns coupled with the speed with which money was pushed out the door by the Biden Administration's EPA heightened the Committee's concerns and raised additional questions about certain Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund recipients." Several of the groups that were recipients of GGRF money sued the Trump administration in March over its attempts to rake back the funds. Subsequently, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary restraining order preventing the EPA from freezing $14 billion in GGRF funds awarded to three of the climate groups.
Fox News
27-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Comer probes NGOs that received $20B in Biden EPA grants despite almost no revenue: 'Shady deal'
FIRST ON FOX: House Oversight Chairman James Comer is expanding his probe into former President Joe Biden's EPA, accusing the agency of awarding $20 billion in grants to political allies. Comer, R-Ky., called on eight nongovernmental organizations who received the grants to offer the committee all information related to the grants and their staff and salaries. The $20 billion came out of two initiatives launched under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that aimed to offer grants to nonprofits, community development banks and other groups for projects focusing on disadvantaged communities. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin moved to terminate the programs earlier this month, but that decision is now held up in court. "The Biden EPA tried to dodge any oversight by striking a shady deal with a financial institution to cover up its corrupt self-dealing that rewarded political cronies pushing a far-left environmental agenda," Comer said in a statement. "The radical environmental groups profiting from Biden's Green New Deal must be held accountable for their misuse of taxpayer-funded grants and provide information for our investigation." Republicans claim the $20 billion was "parked at an outside financial institution" to avoid oversight. As part of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) program, eight groups were awarded funds from the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund and the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator. Eight letters went out to: Climate United, Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities, Opportunity Finance Network, Inclusiv, Justice Climate Fund, Appalachian Community Capital and Native CDFI Network. Included in the funds was a $2 billion grant to Power Forward Communities, a group linked to former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams that aims to "reduce our impact on the climate" by funding the replacement of household appliances in lower-income communities with green alternatives. Zeldin told Fox News that in 2023, Power Forward Communities reported just $100 in revenue, but was later granted $2 billion by the Biden-era EPA in 2024. "On page one of the grant agreement, it tells them that they have 21 days to distribute all $2 billion. On page seven of the grant agreement, it gives them 90 days to complete a training called 'How to Develop a Budget.' I would say that any entity that needs training on how to develop a budget shouldn't be actually distributing money before they take that training, and they certainly shouldn't be receiving $2 billion to be distributed that rapidly," he continued. Zeldin also noted the EPA found a potential "conflict of interest" payment of $5 billion to the former director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund under Biden. "All this money was put up front," Zeldin said. "It was 'here is $20 billion.' And it was going to their friends on the left." The acting inspector general of the EPA is now investigating the GGRF for financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest and oversight failures. The Oversight Committee launched its probe in February and requested a briefing from Zeldin on the matter earlier this month. The FBI is also investigating possible criminal violations. Fox News Digital has reached out to the eight companies for comment on Comer's letters but did not receive responses prior to publication.
