One of the last actions the Biden-Harris administration takes could be the disbursal of tens of millions of dollars to a pro-Palestinian nonprofit that disseminated protest materials exalting Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.
In December 2023, the EPA selected Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), a Berkeley, California-based “environmental justice” nonprofit, to receive a $50 million grant award despite the entity engaging in anti-Israel advocacy following Hamas’ October 7th attacks and promoting the “defund the police” movement. Nearly a year later, the EPA has not moved forward in obligating the grant to CJA, and the pro-Palestinian nonprofit is demanding that EPA disburse the cash before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
“Now more than ever, the promises of the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] should be delivered on and the obligated funds that Climate Justice Alliance is waiting on should be released by December,” KD Chavez, executive director of CJA, wrote in a press release on Wednesday.
“We know that these next few years are going to be delivering compounding threats to our frontline and fenceline communities,” Chavez said in a video that CJA posted on X. “We can help mitigate some of these threats through the Inflation Reduction Act’s Thriving Communities Grantmaking program.”
“Solidarity forever,” Chavez added.
Trump Admin Could Rescind Leftover Funds
The CJA’s $50 million grant award is a part of the EPA’s $600 million Environmental Justice and Thriving Communities Grantmaking (EJTCGM) program under the Inflation Reduction Act’s $3 billion Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants provision.
The EPA’s selectees include recipients that operate in China under the supervision of the Chinese Communist Party foreign influence operation, support open borders, hand out funds to a group blacklisted by U.S. credit card companies over their fiscal support for a Palestinian terror group and advocate for defunding the U.S. military, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s extensive reporting on the program.
CJA is the only nonprofit out of the 11 announced recipients of the EPA’s EJTCGM program that has not received a portion of its grant award, according to a DCNF review of USA Spending grant obligation amounts. If the Agency does not formally obligate the total $600 million in grant funding by Jan. 20, the Trump administration could refuse to award the leftover money.
“There’s no reason why they [the Trump EPA] can’t reconsider how money is being spent consistent with the law,” Daren Bakst, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment, told the DCNF in an interview.
“They should carefully review whether or not, in fact, the money has been properly obligated. They need to make sure they have proper oversight and accountability for the money and make sure that there’s not waste and abuse, which is a serious concern with all the IRA spending from the EPA,” Bakst added.
The pro-Palestinian nonprofit came under congressional scrutiny in May following Republican West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s discovery of a “Palestine art for protests” collection on the CJA’s website, which contained images appearing to glorify Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel and justify violent Palestinian resistance.
“If you dig deeper they want to defund the police, defund the military — either them or their affiliates want to have very radical, drastic initiatives that I think are anti-American, and are certainly anti-Israel and antisemitic,” Capito said during the press conference.
“Policing has always been and will always be used as a force in continued oppression of marginalized people and communities,” an April 23, 2021, CJA press release states. “We want to end all policing, all prisons and the freedom and liberation of our people.”
The nonprofit also calls for the elimination of all fossil fuel production and opposes nuclear energy and hydropower, which garner widespread bipartisan support.
‘One Of The Top-Scoring Applicants’
The CJA was one of the “top-scoring applicants” among all of the nonprofits that applied to serve as “environmental justice” grantmakers to disburse IRA funding to subgrantees, according to CJA’s press release published on Wednesday.
“Political affiliations played no role in the evaluation, scoring, and selection of Grantmakers,” an EPA spokesperson told Fox News in May.
The EPA could face litigation from CJA if the agency tries to break its contractual agreement with the nonprofit to withhold the $50 million award, Administrator Michael Regan appeared to tell House lawmakers during a July oversight hearing.
“I have to legally go through a process to ensure that they either are in or out of the bounds because there’s going to be litigation one way or another,” Regan said. “They’re going through a very thorough evaluation.”
An EPA spokesperson told E&E News on Wednesday that the Agency is still reviewing CJA’s $50 million award. The EPA did not respond to the DCNF’s inquiry about the state of the award obligation.
“This is a larger attack on civil society and due process in our democratic grantmaking and environmental work,” Chavez said in during an interview with E&E News on Wednesday during which the nonprofit also alleged “viewpoint discrimination.”
“So I just hope that they do the right thing and that this doesn’t set a pretty sizable precedent for all future progressive funding going into this next administration,” Chavez added.
‘Who Defines EJ Projects? We Do’
CJA is partnering with seven other entities to disburse subawards of up to $350,000 under the $50 million grant award to “community-based organizations” across 12 states in the Western part of the United States, Alaska and Hawaii in a program called United Network for Impact, Transformation and Equity in Environmental Justice Communities (UNITE-EJ).
One of CJA’s UNITE-EJ partners is the NDN Collective, an “indigenous rights” advocacy group that frequently protests Israel’s use of military force against Hamas and Hezbollah and supports defunding the police and the U.S. military.
Another UNITE-EJ partner is the Amalgamated Foundation, which gave $150,000 to the Alliance for Global Justice in 2022, according to a DCNF review of AGJ’s most recent tax filings. The AGC is a fiscal sponsor of a front group financing a Palestinian terrorist organization designated as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the U.S. government.
“Is this group really going to be funding cleaning up the water and cleaning up the soil and cleaning up the air,” Capito asked during the May press conference on CJA’s anti-Israel advocacy. “Or are they going to be funding things like the protests they had in Hart [Senate Office Building] just several weeks ago where several of them were arrested?”
Capito was referring to the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, a member organization of the CJA, which frequently organizes illegal anti-Israel protests on U.S. government property.
The GGJA co-led a protest against giving military aid to Israel in the Senate Hart office building in December 2023 — the same month EPA named the CJA as a recipient of 50 million taxpayer dollars. On Monday, the GGJA joined several other pro-Palestine advocacy groups to protest in support of independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ resolutions to halt U.S. weapons sales to Israel.
“Who defines EJ [environmental justice] projects? We do,” Courtenay Brown, director of the UNITE-EJ program, said during a CJA-organized panel in New York City in September. “We get the opportunity to define what is environmental justice and what gets funded through that.”
“Climate justice calls upon us to wage love for people and the planet. Now is the time to rise up and join the fight to free Palestine,” a CJA statement celebrating the group’s participation in a Nov. 4, 2023, pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C.
‘Over $330 Million That We Are Directly Influencing’
In addition to the $50 million award that CJA could still receive, the nonprofit is also slated to influence the disbursal of more than $270 million in IRA funding through its 100-plus member organizations that are direct recipients or partners of other grant awards.
“Just to contextualize the public monies moment, I also want to say CJA is an alliance,” Chavez said during the September panel. “With folks directly involved in public monies with IRA funding, we have people in [EPA] regions 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10. So that’s over $330 million that we are directly influencing the flow to frontline communities right now.”
The EPA is on track to formally obligate the vast majority — if not all — of the announced “environmental justice” funding by Trump’s inauguration, according to a statement Ali Zaidi, national climate advisor, gave to Politico in September.
“I would not like to see any organization that expresses bigotry or any kind of racist behavior or discrimination — I would not like to see any organization get any money from the federal government — it’s abhorrent,” Regan said during the July oversight hearing to House lawmakers.
The CJA did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
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