The Biden administration's flagship program, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), which has allocated over $20 billion in grants to nonprofits linked to the Obama administration, is under investigation by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The committee has requested relevant documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Brett Guthrie, Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, penned a letter to Zeldin, asking for comprehensive grant files, supporting documents explaining the basis for the grant decisions, and other related materials for the GGRF awardees by November 19. The letter was also endorsed by John Joyce, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and Gary Palmer, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment.
According to the Daily Caller, the GGRF, under the Biden administration, has awarded $20 billion to environmentally focused groups filled with former high-ranking officials from the Obama and Biden administrations, as well as significant Democratic donors. This is despite some career staff raising concerns about limited oversight and potentially "excessive" executive compensation.
Guthrie, Joyce, and Palmer issued a joint statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation, stating, "In the final days of the Biden-Harris Administration, the EPA put their far-left allies ahead of the American people, giving away Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants worth nearly $30 billion to recipients who were not equipped to receive such large amounts of funding." They further emphasized their commitment to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.
Court documents reveal that the FBI recommended, and the Trump EPA instructed Citibank to freeze accounts holding the funds. The EPA's inspector general, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the FBI are continuing to investigate the GGRF over potential fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Zeldin has consistently highlighted the program as an example of wasteful spending during the Biden administration.
The Committee initiated an investigation into the GGRF program in February 2025. GOP members sent letters in April 2025 to the eight nonprofits awarded the $20 billion, requesting their communications with the EPA, contract information, and more. The members are now investigating the details of how the grants were distributed, requesting complete files from the EPA, including applications for the grantees, the "scoring breakdown" for the grant awards, and other related materials.
Federal reviewers examined the GGRF before finalizing scores that influenced the Biden EPAs grant awardee decisions. However, they expressed several concerns about the program and applicants, including limited oversight and questionable financial statements.
The Committee's letter highlighted concerns about potential financial mismanagement, as some of the grantees' previous revenues were only a small fraction of the GGRF funds they received. This raises questions about whether the grant recipients can adequately manage significantly larger grant amounts than their previously documented revenue.
Zeldin, a critic of the program, referred to a December 2024 video secretly recorded by the conservative activist group Project Veritas. The video shows a Biden EPA staffer comparing the agencys rush to distribute taxpayer funds to tossing gold bars off the titanic.
Zeldin told the DCNF, "The more you look at this, the worse it gets. Not only was the Biden EPA tossing billions of taxpayer dollars off the Titanic, to borrow their language, but under every stone you find more well documented incidents of self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and intentionally reduced agency oversight."
While the agency insists that it was justified in cancelling the grant agreements, the grantees have sued the EPA and argue that the Biden administration acted appropriately in distributing the funds. A federal appeals court ruled on Sept. 3 that Obama-appointed district court Judge Tanya Chutkan overstepped her authority in preventing the EPA from reclaiming the funds, though the grantees could appeal the ruling.
On Sept. 10, Republicans on the Oversight Committee published a report detailing concerns about the program, including opaque oversight, the awardees political connections, and more. This ongoing investigation underscores the need for transparency and accountability in the allocation of taxpayer funds, particularly in programs of such magnitude as the GGRF.
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