A government watchdog group filed an ethics complaint Friday against a former Biden White House official who now sits on the board of a green organization selected for receipt of billions of taxpayer dollars by the Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) alleges in the complaint that David Hayes — a Democrat insider who worked in the Biden White House as a climate advisor — may have violated ethics rules in re-joining the board of the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC) in 2023 as it was applying for billions of EPA dollars that the Biden administration eventually awarded to the organization in April 2024. The government watchdog group filed a similar complaint highlighting many of the same concerns in June 2024, but is re-filing the complaint with the Trump EPA and Trump White House Office of Legal Counsel with additional information about the program in question, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), that has come to light in the time since.
“The Coalition for Green Capital had multiple employees leave their organizations to join the Biden White House only to then shovel $5 billion to their former employer. This organization’s actions exemplify the self-dealing that can be found throughout the Biden EPA ‘gold bar’ scheme,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Biden Administration took deliberate steps to massively reduce government oversight while giving out billions of dollars to organizations with clear conflicts of interest, unnecessary middlemen, and unqualified recipients. The funds are currently frozen, and the [Department of Justice] and FBI are investigating.”
PPT Ethics Complaint Re David Hayes by Nick Pope on Scribd
The DCNF first reported in November 2023 that rumored GGRF competitors — including CGC — were laden with Democrat insiders and donors, and has continued to cover the program in the time since.
In public comments about the GGRF, Zeldin has frequently referenced a video from conservative activist group Project Veritas in which a former Biden EPA official likened the agency’s rush to get GGRF dollars out the door to “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” while being surreptitiously recorded by an undercover Project Veritas activist.
Subsequent reporting from The Washington Free Beacon and others found that Jahi Wise, the Biden EPA official who oversaw the program and now works for George Soros’ philanthropic foundation, also formerly worked for CGC, for example. CGC declined to comment for this story.
“This is why we refer to this program as the ‘Greendoggle,’ and exactly what we, and the Daily Caller News Foundation, have been warning about for years,” Michael Chamberlain, PPT’s executive director, told the DCNF. “The Biden EPA had constantly revolving doors with activist groups and the climate industry. If you flood an agency like that with $20 billion unattached to more robust oversight, that money can become a slush fund for insiders. Then (Surprise! Surprise!) the organization he was at both before and after his stint in the Biden White House gets billions from one of the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate programs, one conveniently tied to his former colleague Mr. Wise, to boot. It’s hard to see how it could get more swampy.”
PPT’s complaint specifically alleges that Hayes may have fallen afoul of his ethical obligations “by leaving CGC’s board to work on creating the GGRF,” as well as by potentially peddling influence if he remained in contact with Biden administration officials after leaving the White House and appearing to have possibly used public service for private gain.
“The optics of Mr. Hayes’s entrance into the Biden administration and departure from it are troubling,” PPT’s complaint states. “Mr. Hayes left CGC’s board for a relatively brief stint in the White House and presumably worked at the highest level on the very GGRF program from which CGC sought funding upon his return. This timing is suspect considering CGC itself publicly announced his return to its board as part of its effort to obtain GGRF funding.”
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