President Donald Trump’s environmental chief is vowing to go to new lengths to reclaim $20 billion in federal green grants — by pulling them out of the bank accounts where Joe Biden’s administration had placed them. Such a move could invite a world of legal trouble that may ultimately cost taxpayers more than the original sum and erode investors' trust in the government to honor its contracts, write Jean Chemnick and Emily Ngo. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin did not point to any evidence of misconduct when announcing in a video on X that he would attempt to reclaim money from two Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund programs designed to facilitate green investment and lending. Instead, he accused the Biden administration of attempting to shield the programs from government oversight by contracting with Citibank to set up accounts in the names of eight awardees. He argued that the money should have stayed at the Treasury Department. Zeldin also cited a now-infamous video from December in which a person identified as an EPA adviser likened the Biden administration’s eleventh-hour climate spending sprint to “throwing gold bars” off the Titanic. Of course, Biden’s aides and Cabinet members had also said openly — and repeatedly — that they aimed to commit as much of the money as possible before Trump could try to pull it back. Democrats have charged that Trump’s efforts to throttle spending approved in the Biden era are usurping Congress’ constitutional powers and violating agencies’ legally binding commitments. Reaching into bank accounts to claw back the dollars may take this fight to a whole new level. But EPA is seemingly not alone: This week, New York City’s comptroller charged that the Trump administration had “illegally” pulled $80 million from the city’s bank accounts in a dispute over federal funding for migrant housing. Back to the EPA money
The two grant programs that Zeldin targeted are the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, or green bank, and the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator program, which aims to build green lending capacity at institutions that serve low-income communities. Biden’s EPA worked with Treasury to contract Citibank as the financial agent for the two programs so that any interest could be used by the awardees. Still, Citibank is required to report extensively to the Treasury and EPA on any transactions. The eight nonprofits signed contracts with EPA in advance of receiving the funds that included detailed work plans and criteria for how the money could be invested and used. Still, Zeldin said EPA does not have the oversight it would like. “We want to get that money back to the EPA,” he told POLITICO in an interview. Treasury is already administering a third Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program, called Solar for All. It has been frozen for most of the last two weeks despite federal courts ordering the funding to be released. By contrast, the grantees whose funding is housed with Citibank are actively lending and making investments, including affordable housing initiatives in Appalachia and clean energy installations in Puerto Rico. Hundreds of millions of it have been spent to help low-income areas and communities of color install clean energy and reduce pollution, Zack Colman reported Thursday.
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