James Varney: Biden-Harris's Climate Slush-Fund Gives Out Nearly a Billions and Billions of Taxpayer Dollars to a Fund Controlled By Obama's Fomer Aides and Other Democrat Cronies

When they say "Green New Deal," they're talking about bilking the taxpayers for their own Generational Wealth.

Although there isn't much public information available about the Justice Climate Fund, it appears to have been an overnight success.

After gaining nonprofit status in August 2023, the organization was awarded $940 million by the Biden administration just eight months later in connection with the White House's $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which aims to provide financial assistance to reduce carbon emissions and reduce pollution.

The Justice Climate Fund is not the only nonprofit newcomer suddenly made rich by the GGRF. Within a month of gaining nonprofit status from the IRS, Power Forward Communities, which reported 2023 revenues of $100, was awarded $2 billion.

The awards were made by the Environmental Protection Agency, which is new to the world of major grantmaking. The agency acknowledges it has never handed out such gigantic sums of money, and its inspector general told Congress last month it marked a "fantastically complex" and "unusual" setup that his small staff would be hard-pressed to follow.

Critics note that many of the awardees are run by politically connected figures. The single biggest winner in the awards, which were announced in April, was the Climate United Fund, which is slated to receive $6.97 billion. The fund's directors include prominent Democrats, such as Phil Angelides, a former California State Treasurer, and Anthony Foxx, who served as Transportation Secretary in the Obama administration.

The unprecedented nature of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which was created as part of 2022's Inflation Reduction Act, is raising concerns about the Biden administration's efforts to spend tens of billions of dollars in its final months, a gusher of taxpayer money that will flow into a poorly understood, untested, and difficult to audit format. The tremendous sums involved, the novelty of the program, and the EPA's lack of experience in the field, as well as the unproven track record of some of the newly hatched recipients, have drawn the attention of lawmakers and others uncertain about how the taxpayers' billions will ultimately be spent and who will keep track of it all.

"These groups are political front groups that are simply created to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to Democrat campaigns under the guise of doing something good," said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff in the Trump administration.

Daren Bakst, director of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment and a sharp critic of the Biden administration's climate change spending splurge, said, "It's worse than a slush fund -- it's a slush fund to create non-profit slush funds."

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Neither the Justice Climate Fund nor Power Forward Communities responded to questions about their plans to spend the close to $3 billion in public funds they had received.

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EPA Special Advisor Zealan Hoover pushed back at the claim that unusual secrecy surrounded the process and criticism that there are flimsy guardrails to ensure the $27 billion is well spent.

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The board of the Coalition for Green Capital, which got the second biggest NCIF award of $5 billion, includes Hugh Frater, who headed Fannie Mae at the end of the Obama administration. Another board member,Cecilia Martinez, was the top "environmental justice official" in Biden's White House before moving to the advocacy and nonprofit sector. Stephen Brown, the Coalition's chief network officer, began his Washington career in the Clinton White House, while Jessie Buendia, chief impact officer, was previously part of the California state government. Another highlighted officer with the Coalition is Daniela Nyiri, who worked on campaigns for Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens before moving to the Progressive Turnout Project.

The last NCIF installment of $2 billion was awarded to a group called Power Forward Communities, which was formed in 2023. It is led by Timothy J. Mayopoulos, who headed Obama's Fannie Mae from 2012 to 2018. One of its directors is Shaun Donovan, who served in the Obama administration for all of its eight years, including a stint as secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Read the whole thing. Now that Biden-Harris know their days are numbered and unspent funds will be cancelled by Trump, they're just firehosing the money out to their cronies.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:17 PM

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