The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found in a recent audit that former President Joe Biden’s administration did not adequately protect more than $22 billion in taxpayer dollars.
The OIG found in the audit released Tuesday that grants awarded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) were not monitored according to protocol. The report found that 39 of the 40 grant files reviewed by the OIG were not maintained in accordance with expectations, and that EPA regional offices “did not have controls in place to ensure that its regional offices are monitoring post-award performance of grants.”
“This audit reveals just how deeply ingrained the culture of waste was during the previous administration. The American people put President Trump in office with a mandate to stamp out this rot,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement Friday. “We will work throughout the agency, including with the Office of the Inspector General, to strengthen the financial controls and accountability measures that were missing under the Biden administration. The days of colossally wasteful spending and subjecting hard-earned American tax dollars to waste and abuse are over.”
“These funds were appropriated by Congress to improve drinking water, wastewater, stormwater infrastructure, and Superfund and brownfield cleanup, but, as the OIG audit noted, the Biden Administration’s lack of oversight made it impossible to verify if ‘grant recipients are complying with federal regulations, EPA policy, and grant requirements,’” the EPA said in a Friday statement.
The EPA also noted Friday that Zeldin and the Trump EPA have been diligent to guard taxpayer dollars, moving “quickly to terminate the Biden Administration’s ‘gold bars’ scheme.”
The agency under the Trump administration cancelled over $20 billion in taxpayer funds flowing to well-connected green groups through the Biden-era Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which Zeldin has pointed to as an example of waste on the Biden administration’s watch on numerous occasions.
Notably, several organizations filed lawsuits after it froze the funds, claiming there is no legal justification for withholding the funds and that the EPA acted appropriately in distributing them. Although a three-judge panel ruled 2–1 on Sept. 2 to uphold the freeze, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Wednesday that the case may be reheard.
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