- On February 13, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed to uncover a $20 billion fund at EPA that he said were taxpayer “gold bars.” Despite acknowledging that there was “zero reason to suspect any wrongdoing,” Zeldin has been on a media blitz suggesting that these grants are evidence of waste, fraud and abuse.
- The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) is not secret. In fact, EPA was specifically ordered to establish the fund and commit the appropriated money to grantees by September 2024 under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The grants were transparently announced by the Biden administration.
- The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund helps low-income households lower their energy costs and reduce their exposure to pollution. GGRF investments will lower energy bills for families and small businesses across the country, while creating jobs and economic development opportunities – especially in low-income, rural, Tribal, and other overlooked communities.
- Every federal dollar for the GGRF is expected to deliver an additional seven dollars of private investment in economic development projects.
- EPA and the Treasury Department designed the GGRF – and structured an agreement with Citibank – to maintain extensive oversight and prevent misuse of taxpayer dollars. If the agency finds evidence of malfeasance, it can directly and immediately address such concerns on a case-by-case basis. You can learn more about this from Zealan Hoover, a former EPA official who helped oversee the program, here.
- In an effort to create the appearance of a scandal, the Trump administration attempted to launch an investigation and impound funds without any evidence of wrongdoing, as detailed in this Washington Post article:
- On February 12th, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. – a veteran prosecutor – resigned after facing political pressure to freeze the funds.
- Interim U.S. attorney Ed Martin then personally submitted a warrant application to seize the funds from Citibank without any other prosecutors in his office. That request was rejected by a U.S. magistrate judge, who found that the request failed to show sufficient proof that a crime may have occurred.
- Around that same time, the Acting Deputy Attorney General’s office asked at least one other U.S. attorney’s office to launch a grand jury investigation and freeze the funds at Citibank. Once again, federal prosecutors denied the warrant request due to insufficient evidence.
- Stefan D. Cassella, an expert in asset forfeiture law, described this “extraordinary and probably unprecedented” effort to “freeze accounts without adequate evidence or legal basis” as “a misuse of the Justice Department’s powers of criminal investigation.”
- Despite the Trump Administration trying and failing to find evidence of wrongdoing in EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), funds held at Citibank remain frozen as of the end of February 2025 — and the nonprofit grantees have been given no explanation for the freeze from the bank or EPA.
