A $20 billion Biden administration green-energy slush fund was collecting interest at a private bank and is being distributed without proper oversight, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin reveals in an exclusive interview.
President Joe Biden’s EPA parked $20 billion at the financial institution, which The Post has learned is Citibank, as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. But the awardees weren’t announced until August 2024 and Citibank was not brought in until September — after Biden’s disastrous June debate performance led him to withdraw from his re-election effort in July, making for a very different race with Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic nominee.
Zeldin’s team is looking into whether former EPA employees are working at any of the grantees, which include the Opportunity Finance Network (receiving $2.29 billion), where vice president Laura Silverman says she brings “economic, financial, and social justice to communities,” and the Native CDFI Network ($400 million), which has featured Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as a speaker. Power Forward Communities, a $2 billion recipient, has no list of employees on its website — but does have openings for government affairs VP, communications VP and special assistant.
The others: Climate United Fund (which got the biggest grant, nearly $7 billion), Coalition for Green Capital ($5 billion), Inclusiv ($1.87 billion), Justice Climate Fund ($940 million) and Appalachian Community Capital ($500 million).
Here Lee Zeldin tells The Post’s Kelly Jane Torrance why it was “a high priority for me and my great team to get to the bottom of these questions as quickly as possible.”
This was on our radar during the transition, when the video was posted online at the beginning of December of the Biden EPA political appointee admitting on camera they were “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”
