(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A group of newly established environmentalist groups hit the jackpot thanks to a generous grant program under the Biden administration, receiving billions in taxpayer dollars despite having little to no track record.
These funds come from a $375 billion slush fund managed by Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency, created under the so-called Inflation Reduction Act to fight climate change. The EPA and former climate czar John Podesta expedited the release of $20 billion to groups that “had only recently been founded,” the New York Post reported Wednesday.
Such lack of information raises questions from Charity Watch, an independent charity watchdog organization. “Ethically speaking, it’s concerning,” said Charity Watch CEO Laurie Styron.
She asked, “What was the purpose of creating middlemen entities when there are so many established groups in the climate space with good track records? What was the value-added in [by] doing it this way, especially with such large sums of taxpayer funds?”
According to the Post, Kamala Harris, the disgraced former vice president, granted $7 billion to the non-profit Climate United Fund in April 2024—four months before its official founding.
The organization boasted on its website that the funds would be used to “mobilize private capital and increase access to solar, electric vehicles, and green buildings through innovative financing.” Notably, it admitted that it had been created exclusively to manage the fund.
Despite receiving substantial taxpayer funding, there are no public records detailing how the group plans to spend the $7 billion it was awarded. Headline USA reached out for comment but received no response.
Exclusive | $375B EPA slush fund handled by John Podesta gave billions to charities founded only months earlier https://t.co/uCiJFLyw2z pic.twitter.com/h2iYreWmwV
— New York Post (@nypost) March 5, 2025
Another recipient, the Justice Climate Fund, was awarded $940 million by the Biden-led EPA. Founded in 2023, the company has no publicly available IRS filings, according to the Post.
Worse still, the Justice Climate Fund—whose email system rejected Headline USA’s repeated request for comment—has not listed any executive on its website.
Power Forward Communities Inc., a third recipient, was registered in 2023 and reported a meager $100 in revenue on its tax filings that year. Despite this, it received $2 billion from the EPA.
The nonprofit claims to be a consortium of other established organizations, including United Way Worldwide and Rewiring America. Stacy Abrams, the twice-failed Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, served as Rewiring America’s general counsel in 2023.
These findings come less than two months after President Donald Trump took office in January. Trump’s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, has blocked the further transfer of funds and is currently fighting lawsuits that seek to compel him to release them.
The Biden administration seemingly predicted that the Trump administration would delay or block the transfers, rushing to disburse the funds quietly before Jan. 20, according to Project Veritas.
The Justice Department is reportedly investigating the scandal.
