The Biden Bureaucracy Used Climate Rhetoric To Funnel Billions To Democrat NGOs

The Biden administration, in its waning months, executed a maneuver so audacious in scope and so cynical in execution that it ought to unsettle even the most doctrinaire environmentalist. Under the sanctimonious banner of “climate justice,” unelected bureaucrats within the Environmental Protection Agency orchestrated a $20 billion disbursement of public funds to a cadre of freshly-minted nonprofit organizations, many of which had no infrastructure, no track record, and no scientific expertise. These funds were drawn from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), itself a creature of the Inflation Reduction Act. Ostensibly created to drive clean energy investment, the GGRF instead became a Trojan horse, delivering taxpayer dollars not to innovation, but to ideological allies of the outgoing administration. Although the court has temporarily frozen the $20 billion, DOJ lawyers still loyal to the Democratic Party are now working overtime behind the scenes to sabotage the case and ensure the funds ultimately reach their intended partisan recipients. In effect, the courtroom has become the last theater for preserving a political payout dressed in the garb of environmental progress.

The shell game operated as follows. Eight groups were hand-picked by the EPA to serve as prime recipients of the $20 billion. Among them were entities like the Climate United Fund, Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, and Power Forward Communities. These were not venerable environmental institutions, nor even startups with compelling green technologies. In some cases, they were legal fictions that barely existed a year prior. Power Forward Communities, for instance, reportedly claimed just $100 in revenue in 2023 when Stacey Abrams served as senior counsel. Yet it was awarded a staggering $2 billion in federal funds. Climate United Fund was barely five months old when it received nearly $7 billion. Such figures defy credulity and demand explanation. None has been credibly offered.

Let us be precise. These were not merely misguided awards to fledgling groups with noble intentions. They were political payouts. The leadership of these nonprofits reads like a directory of Democratic operatives and progressive luminaries. Climate United Fund, for instance, is led by Beth Bafford, a former Obama official. Its board includes Anthony Foxx, Obama’s former Transportation Secretary, and Dolores Huerta, the longtime labor activist. One of the grantees used its connection to Stacey Abrams in its grant proposal, a fact apparently sufficient to merit a billion-dollar payday regardless of merit. These are not coincidences. They are correlations that point to intent.

But even if one were to adopt the most charitable interpretation, the structure of the funding mechanisms belies that generosity. The prime recipients functioned almost entirely as pass-through entities, tasked not with deploying funds themselves, but with sub-granting them to others. This introduced at least two layers of remove between the federal treasury and any actual climate project. Worse, it rendered the EPA’s oversight toothless. In fact, the grant agreements explicitly excluded the EPA from direct authority over sub-grantee disbursements. This opacity was not incidental, it was instrumental.

Consider also the astonishing speed with which these funds were obligated. Internal EPA memos and whistleblower testimony reveal a frantic effort to lock in grant agreements before January 20, 2025, the day of President Trump’s inauguration. One video, since referred to the EPA Inspector General, captures an outgoing official likening the grants to “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.” It was not a metaphor of warning, but of pride. As if looting the public treasury were an act of moral courage so long as it was cloaked in green.

The phrase may be colorful, but it is not inaccurate. According to official documents, over $3 billion of these funds have already been spent. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, appointed by the new administration, attempted to halt further disbursement, citing extensive concerns: structural deficiencies, financial mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud. In doing so, he terminated grant agreements with Climate United Fund and others, referred the matter to the EPA Inspector General, and sent legal notices to the Department of Justice and the FBI.

But then came the judiciary.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, no stranger to politically charged rulings, blocked the terminations. She deemed the agency’s actions “arbitrary and unlawful” and ordered that at least $625 million in grant funds remain accessible to the very groups under investigation. The EPA appealed, and the D.C. Circuit issued a temporary stay. Yet the direction of judicial pressure is clear: release the funds, consequences be damned. Worse still, internal leaks from DOJ and Treasury staff aligned with Democrat interests warn that halting the grants could expose the federal government to multibillion-dollar liabilities, a theory that only emboldens the plaintiffs. These are not neutral bureaucrats weighing costs and benefits. They are partisan holdovers from the previous administration, embedded like barnacles to resist reform.

This is not an isolated incident. During her final weeks, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm orchestrated a $22.9 billion surge in green energy loan guarantees. More than $14 billion went to two utility companies in her home state of Michigan, both past campaign contributors. The DOE’s Inspector General had warned of conflicts of interest, even pointing to a loan official with a financial stake in one of the recipient companies. The warnings were ignored. The money went out the door.

The pattern repeats. Political allies enriched. Oversight sidelined. Investigations launched only after the damage was done.

To the defender of climate policy who finds this critique unfair or politically motivated, a simple rejoinder: if this were truly about the environment, why the shell nonprofits? Why the political appointees masquerading as scientists? Why the subversion of oversight mechanisms and the rush to obligate funds in the eleventh hour? And above all, why the resistance to even the most basic accountability? A program designed to reduce carbon emissions should be able to demonstrate, at minimum, what emissions it has reduced. Yet no such data exists. Instead, we have slogans, lawsuits, and a suspicious silence from the groups now flush with cash.

It is difficult to overstate the implications. The EPA was not simply misled, it was weaponized. The bureaucrats responsible did not merely err, they exploited their positions to reward allies and frustrate the incoming administration. The very structure of the GGRF now appears engineered for opacity, abuse, and irreversibility. That alone is sufficient reason for Congress to claw back these funds and rewrite the statutes governing their allocation.

Lee Zeldin, to his credit, acted swiftly and transparently. But he now finds himself besieged by legacy staff within his own agency and by activist judges determined to preserve the slush fund at all costs. The outcome of these legal battles will determine whether the executive branch retains any power to police its own spending, or whether all future presidents must govern in the shadow of pre-committed funds and ideologically entrenched programs.

The path forward is narrow but clear. Congress should immediately reassert its power of the purse by revoking unspent funds from the GGRF and reappropriating them under strict guardrails. The White House should support the Inspector General’s investigation and urge criminal referrals where fraud is found. And above all, the public must demand that climate policy serve the environment, not enrich the connected.

The climate is a real challenge. But it is not a blank check. It is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for partisan grift. And it is certainly not an excuse to pretend that the enrichment of a Stacey Abrams-linked nonprofit with $100 in prior revenue constitutes a meaningful solution to rising emissions.

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