"Imagine if Republicans gave the Trump Administration tens of billions of dollars to dole out to right-wing groups to sprinkle around to favored businesses. That's what Democrats did in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Trump team's effort to break up this spending racket has led to a court brawl, which could be educational.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin recently canceled some $20 billion in grants that his Biden predecessors rushed out to leftwing groups from the EPA's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Democrats established this quasi-private green bank in the IRA to avoid government oversight of climate spending.
Mr. Zeldin claims the freeze is needed because of "substantial concerns regarding program integrity, the award process, programmatic fraud, waste, and abuse, and misalignment with the Agency's priorities." He's right that the program is rife with political conflicts. In one example, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund director Jahi Wise oversaw a $5 billion grant to his former employer, Coalition for Green Capital.
The Biden EPA awarded another $2 billion to Power Forward Communities, an umbrella group of climate outfits that was formed in 2023 supposedly to "finance home energy efficiency upgrades." But the IRA includes tax credits and other grant programs for this purpose. Power Forward's real purpose is to spread taxpayer funds to progressives.
One Power Forward member is Rewiring America, which is backed by the Windward Fund, a nonprofit managed by the liberal dark money group Arabella Advisors. Rewiring America hired Stacey Abrams as a senior counsel in 2023 to "guide the organization as it builds the tools and capacity" to connect Americans -- i.e., liberal groups -- to "Inflation Reduction Act incentives." Ms. Abrams is the former candidate for Georgia Governor who refused to concede she'd lost for years.
The program's biggest recipient is Climate United, which was also formed in 2023 and has received $7 billion -- nearly as much the EPA's annual budget. Climate United claims on its website to have made a handful of "investments," including $32 million for a solar project in Arkansas and $250 million for California electric truck manufacturing.
Climate United says it is "partnering with" Forum Mobility, a California electric truck and charging startup, whose CEO Matt LeDucq is a Biden-Harris donor. The primary beneficiary of the Arkansas "investment" is Scenic Hill Solar, whose CEO is Bill Halter, the state's former Democratic lieutenant governor who worked in the Clinton Administration.
We discovered these political connections via Google searches, and no doubt there are -- and will be -- many more. Mr. Zeldin says the Biden EPA intentionally structured the grant agreements with liberal groups to prevent the agency or Congress from overseeing how the funds are spent.
Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who likes to denounce conservative dark money, is now denouncing Mr. Zeldin for trying to shine a light on liberal dark money. "This is not how the Constitution, the appropriations process, or contract law works," he declares. He's right. Congress isn't supposed to subcontract its spending power to third parties.
Mr. Zeldin says the program violates the private nondelegation doctrine, which says Congress can't hand off its core responsibilities to private parties. The Supreme Court next week is coincidentally hearing a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund that highlights this doctrine.
The liberal groups suing the EPA point to the High Court's refusal to stay a lower-court order requiring the U.S. Agency for International Development to pay some $2 billion to various groups. But that money was for services that groups had already performed. The vast majority of the $20 billion Mr. Zeldin wants to freeze hasn't even been obligated.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, wrote in dissent that the proper venue for plaintiffs to seek redress in such disputes is federal claims court. That strikes us as right. But if liberal groups want to defend in court their right to taxpayer dollars, Americans might find it instructive to discover how the Biden Administration's Green New Deal really worked." [1]
1. Trump's EPA vs. Dark Climate Money. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 20 Mar 2025: A14.
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