EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said his agency has referred several Biden-era green energy grant transactions to watchdogs and prosecutors after identifying alleged self-dealing, political ties and concerns over billions in taxpayer funds.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said he has made criminal referrals tied to Biden-era green energy grants, alleging that politically connected nonprofits and former Democratic administration figures benefited from billions in taxpayer funds routed through pass-through entities.
Zeldin said the EPA has canceled or stopped roughly $29 billion in grants, including a $2 billion award to Power Forward Communities, a nonprofit connected to longtime Georgia Democratic activist and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, according to a Just the News report.
“It’s about self-dealing,” Zeldin said.
The EPA administrator said the grants under review involved multiple pass-through groups with links to former Obama and Biden administration officials, Democratic donors, former Cabinet members and other politically connected figures.
“As you look through all of these pass-through entities, you’re seeing so many connections to former Obama and Biden administration officials and Democratic donors, people who were former Cabinet members, other high-ranking administration officials,” Zeldin said Monday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.
Zeldin said the EPA has referred several transactions to the agency’s inspector general and the Justice Department for possible further investigation or prosecution.
“Those referrals have been made,” he said.
The allegations stem partly from funding created through the Inflation Reduction Act, including money in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Zeldin said Democrats controlled Congress and the White House when the funding structure was created and accused Biden administration agencies of sending money to politically favored organizations.
“They included all of this funding in this so-called Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. And then they would work with these different agencies of the Biden administration to get it out to their unqualified friends. The whole thing just feels criminal,” Zeldin said. “[…] This is clearly something that falls into the category of blatant waste and abuse.”
The $2 billion award to Power Forward Communities has become one of the highest-profile grants under scrutiny. The Biden administration awarded the money in 2024 for “residential decarbonization,” an initiative aimed at replacing gas furnaces and other home appliances with electric alternatives.
Abrams “played a pivotal role” in establishing the group, Fox News reported.
The grant drew attention after Power Forward Communities was reported to have had only $100 the year before receiving the award. The Trump administration’s EPA announced in February 2025 that it was moving to recover the money as part of a broader effort to claw back funds sent out near the end of the Biden administration.
Power Forward Communities remains publicly identified through its organization website.
Abrams, who worked for Vitalizing De Soto, a group tied to Power Forward, has denied wrongdoing and said the grant was designed to help homeowners purchase environmentally friendly appliances.
“Based on that program, a coalition of organizations – famous organizations – came together and said to the EPA, ‘if we can do this here, we can do this for millions more Americans,’” Abrams said in a 2025 MSNBC interview. “‘Let us invest the money of America in lowering the cost for Americans.’”
Judicial Watch has sued for more information about the Power Forward Communities grant. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the Biden administration rushed money to left-wing organizations as it was leaving office.
“As the Biden administration was collapsing in 2024, it lawlessly rushed out billions in cash to left-wing interest groups in a way that encouraged fraud and abuse. The Trump EPA team should disclose and expose every single document about this massive Biden corruption scandal,” Fitton said in a statement.
Zeldin’s review began in spring 2025, when the EPA disclosed that the Biden administration had placed $20 billion from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund into an account at New York-based Citibank. Only eight nonprofits had authority to spend the money.
The EPA asked its inspector general to investigate and cited several transactions that raised concerns. In its letter, the agency said Jahi Wise, the former director of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, “personally oversaw” a $5 billion grant to his previous employer. The agency also cited the $2 billion Power Forward Communities grant and a $20 million award to Young, Gifted & Green, whose CEO applied for funding while serving on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.
The EPA’s letter to the inspector general is available as epaigrequest030225.pdf.
The $20 billion has been canceled, but litigation over the money continues in federal court. No major criminal prosecutions have been brought against grant recipients to date.
The EPA has also said career officials raised concerns during the Biden-era application review process about whether groups receiving billions in taxpayer funds had sufficient financial experience and capacity.
“Comments from the panel of government career staffers during the application review process highlighted concerns over handing billions of American tax dollars to these groups in addition to the lack of financial background to handle such large sums of money,” the agency wrote in a recent Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund update.
A federal judge initially blocked Zeldin’s effort and allowed the groups to access the money. A three-judge appeals panel later sided with the EPA. The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is now reviewing the case, which could eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.
Zeldin said he expects most of the $29 billion in grants he has flagged and blocked to be returned to the Treasury once litigation ends.
“We’re not taking money from left-wing NGOs to give them to right-wing NGOs,” Zeldin said. “This is about getting that money back to the taxpayer. This is about making sure that that money coming through an agency like EPA doesn’t have any amount of waste and abuse, that there’s a zero tolerance for it.”
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