The Energy and Commerce Committee investigating the signature Biden-era program that awarded over $20 billion in grants to Obama-connected nonprofits requested pertinent documents from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin in a letter on Wednesday.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie requested in the letter that Zeldin share complete grant files, supporting documents explaining the basis for the grant determinations and other related materials for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) awardees by Nov. 19. Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chairman John Joyce and Subcommittee on Environment Chairman Gary Palmer also signed onto the letter.
Under the GGRF, the Biden administration awarded $20 billion to green groups loaded with former top-level Obama and Biden-era officials as well as major Democratic donors despite some career staff flagging concerns over limited oversight and potentially “excessive” executive compensation.
“In the final days of the Biden-Harris Administration, the EPA put their far-left allies ahead of the American people, giving away Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund grants worth nearly $30 billion to recipients who were not equipped to receive such large amounts of funding,” Guthrie, Joyce and Palmer told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a joint statement. “By requesting documentation about this grant process from the EPA, Republicans on the Committee on Energy and Commerce are continuing our work to root out waste, fraud, and abuse while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
11.05.2025 Epa Letter Re Ggrf by audreystreb
The FBI recommended and the Trump EPA instructed Citibank to freeze accounts holding the funds, according to court documents. The EPA’s inspector general, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI are continuing to investigate the GGRF over potential fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars, and Zeldin has repeatedly pointed to the program as an example of wasteful spending during the Biden administration.
The Committee launched a probe into the GGRF program in February 2025 and GOP members sent letters in April 2025 to the eight nonprofits awarded the $20 billion, asking that the groups provide the committee their communications with the EPA as well as contract information and more. The members are now investigating details on how the grants were doled out, asking the EPA for complete files including applications for the grantees, the “scoring breakdown” for the grant awards and other related materials including “the names of all panel chairs, senior review panels, selection officials, and all individuals involved in the review panels” for grant awardees.
Federal reviewers scrutinized the GGRF before tallying final scores that factored into the Biden EPA’s grant awardee decisions. However, reviewers expressed several concerns with the program and applicants, including limited oversight and curious financial statements, the DCNF previously reported.
“The Committee finds the potential for financial mismanagement particularly worrisome, as some of the grantees’ previous revenues were only a small fraction of the GGRF funds they received, which raises questions about whether the grant recipients can adequately manage grant amounts that are significantly larger than their previously documented revenue,” the letter states, referencing a February Committee hearing that flagged “significant concerns, includ[ing] the GGRF’s unusual structure, large funding amounts, speed of the awards process, and reports of potential conflicts of interest.”
Zeldin was and is a critic of the program, and referenced a December 2024 video covertly recorded by the conservative activist group Project Veritas that captures a Biden EPA staffer comparing the agency’s haste to dole out taxpayer funds to “tossing gold bars off the titanic.”
“The more you look at this, the worse it gets. Not only was the Biden EPA tossing billions of taxpayer dollars ‘off the Titanic,’ to borrow their language, but under every stone you find more well documented incidents of self-dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and intentionally reduced agency oversight,” Zeldin told the DCNF previously, in reference to the GGRF.
While the agency maintains that it was justified in cancelling the grant agreements, the grantees sued the EPA and argue the Biden administration acted appropriately in distributing the funds. A federal appeals court ruled on Sept. 3 that Obama-appointed district court Judge Tanya Chutkan abused her power in blocking the EPA from clawing back the funds, though the grantees could appeal the ruling.
Oversight Committee Republicans published a report on Sept. 10 detailing concerns about the program, including opaque oversight, the awardee’s political connections, and more.
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