{"id":6894,"date":"2025-03-03T17:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T17:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6894"},"modified":"2025-03-03T17:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T17:27:08","slug":"climate-justice-at-risk-as-trump-epa-targets-27b-green-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6894","title":{"rendered":"Climate Justice at Risk as Trump EPA Targets $27B Green Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0<span class=\"author vcard\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/author\/willie-blackmore-special-to-the-informer-via-word-in-black\/\">Willy Blackmore, Special to The Informer via Word in Black<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>This story\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/wordinblack.com\/2025\/02\/climate-justice-trump-epa-targets-27b-green-fund\/\"><em>was originally published online with Word In Black<\/em><\/a><em>, a collaboration of the nation\u2019s leading Black news publishers (of which The Informer is a member).<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was hailed as a landmark moment for climate justice \u2014 a down payment on a greener, more equitable future.<\/p>\n<p>Last August, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded a historic $27 billion in federal dollars to combat climate change through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the so-called green bank established through the Inflation Reduction Act. The first-of-its-kind program was designed to invest in clean energy and other climate-mitigation programs, with 40% earmarked for Black, Brown and otherwise disadvantaged communities under President Biden\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordinblack.com\/2025\/02\/and-now-were-back-to-justice-zero\/\">now-gutted Justice40 initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-1 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-caf9af3267-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But now, the Trump administration is attempting something unprecedented: clawing back tens of billions of dollars in grants that have already been distributed.<\/p>\n<p>The move marks a dramatic escalation in the partisan battle over climate spending and raises questions about the stability of federal contracts. At stake is not just the fate of clean energy projects in Black and Brown communities, but the integrity of the government\u2019s ability to follow through on its promises.<\/p>\n<p>When the funds were awarded last summer, then-EPA Administrator\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordinblack.com\/2024\/04\/send-him-to-angola-white-lawmaker-attacks-first-black-epa-chief\/\">Michael S. Regan<\/a>\u00a0framed the urgency of the moment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith climate impacts increasingly impacting all Americans, and especially those in communities that have been historically left behind, EPA knew it had to move swiftly and deliberately to get this historic funding out the door,\u201d Regan said in a statement in August \u2014 only weeks ahead of the deadline set by Congress when it passed the Inflation Reduction Act two years prior.<\/p>\n<p>There was another clock ticking too, however: the Biden administration was in its lame-duck period, and a potential Trump presidency loomed on the horizon. Climate-justice spending, in particular, needed to happen sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-2 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-2bd992b9b0-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Now the Trump EPA is taking the unprecedented step of attempting to claw back tens of billions in already-distributed grants.<\/p>\n<p>An EPA webpage that somehow still remains online describes the GGRF program as \u201ca $27 billion investment to mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis, ensure our country\u2019s economic competitiveness, and promote energy independence while delivering lower energy costs and economic revitalization to communities that have historically been left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But things look very different from the perspective of the Trump EPA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over,\u201d Lee Zeldin, the new EPA administrator, said last week.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-more-exposure-to-greenhouse-gases\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>More Exposure to Greenhouse Gases<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, the stakes for Black communities couldn\u2019t be higher.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-3 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-dc2e0e383b-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The American Lung Association\u2019s 2024 State of the Air report found that Black people and other people of color are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wordinblack.com\/2024\/04\/state-of-our-air-is-not-equal-but-can-be\/\">2.3 times more likely<\/a>\u00a0to be exposed to unhealthy air than white people.<\/p>\n<p>Black folks are also more likely to have a chronic condition like asthma that can be worsened by exposure to greenhouse gases like ozone.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, 100 million Americans \u2014 and not just Black and Brown people \u2014 live in communities with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-what-happens-if-the-epa-reneges\" class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Happens if the EPA Reneges?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Fixing that no longer seems to be the EPA\u2019s focus and Zeldin claimed the transfer of funds to a private bank \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/zealan.substack.com\/p\/epa-citibank-and-financial-agents\">government practice for more than 40 years<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 is a red flag.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRoughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight,\u201d Zeldin said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-4 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-ca419f6974-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>That $20 billion was moved, by design, to Citibank with the assistance of the<\/p>\n<p>Treasury Department, and sits in accounts held by grant recipients from the fund\u2019s two major programs: the $14 billion National Clean Investment Fund, and the $6 billion Clean Communities Investment Accelerator, which is designed to bring funds to low-income communities in particular.<\/p>\n<p>The other $7 billion in the overall Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund budget is for the Solar For All program, which works on accessibility and affordability for clean energy; that money is still held by the federal government, not a private bank.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the Trump Administration\u2019s efforts to freeze federal funds, or Elon Musk\u2019s attempts through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/02\/10\/nx-s1-5288835\/doge-sets-its-sights-on-medicare-and-medicaid\">cut the budgets of certain federal programs<\/a>\u00a0like Medicaid, the EPA is trying to get back money that it has already paid out \u2014 and that makes what Zeldin is attempting more challenging and potentially more destabilizing on the long-shot chance that he is successful. Because without evidence that there has been fraud \u2014 which EPA has yet to provide \u2014 pulling back the $20 billion would mean tearing up the contract that the government made with both the recipients of the funds and Citibank too.<\/p>\n<p>The most likely outcome of the EPA reneging on the grants is a series of lawsuits and eventual payouts of even more money if and when the agency eventually loses those cases in court, which it likely would.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-5    \">\n<div class=\"newspack_global_ad scaip-5 fixed-height\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-45854c9b0e-0\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cIf the government abrogates the contract without legal justification, then it will eventually owe damages to these people when they sue, but will not be getting the services that are under contract here,\u201d David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eenews.net\/articles\/zeldins-20b-take-back-bid-risks-plunging-epa-into-legal-peril\/\">Politico\u2019s E&amp;E News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But, the legal risks don\u2019t seem to be slowing down Zeldin\u2019s EPA.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read more on wordinblack.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source: Published without changes from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtoninformer.com\/epa-climate-justice-funding\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Washington Informer Newspaper<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Willy Blackmore, Special to The Informer via Word in Black This story\u00a0was originally published online with Word In<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,33,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-america-under-attack","category-health","category-regular-column"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6896,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6894\/revisions\/6896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}