A Loss to Groups Seeking Billions in Climate Funds
- sciart0
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
Excerpt: "At stake are billions in grant dollars, a total that amounts to roughly double the E.P.A.’s annual budget. Legal experts say the case is testing the limits of the Trump administration’s ability to claw back federal money that has already been committed.
Beth Bafford, the chief executive of Climate United, an organization that was awarded nearly $7 billion in grants, said the decision was not the end of the road. “While we are disappointed by the panel’s decision,” she said, “we stand firm on the merits of our case. The E.P.A. unlawfully froze and terminated funds that were legally obligated and disbursed.”
The funds were made available through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the grants were legally committed before the November election. The grant dollars were deposited into recipients’ accounts at Citibank, which agreed to act as an intermediary between the government and the grant recipients.
Not long after entering office, E.P.A. administrator Lee Zeldin began calling for the return of the money, suggesting, without providing evidence, that the grants were vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse."