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EXCLUSIVE: House GOP report alleges $20B green grants enriched Biden allies
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FIRST ON FOX: Republicans from the House Oversight Committee released a report outlining what they allege are conflicts of interest, financial mismanagement and oversight failures associated with a Biden-era green energy grant program that sent $20 billion to just 8 different nonprofits.
The money stems from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which budgeted roughly $27 billion to advance clean energy and «environmental justice» under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF). An undercover recording of a former Biden Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) political appointee, who described disbursements made through GGRF as akin to tossing gold bars off the Titanic at the end of Biden’s term, was cited by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin in February when he announced that the agency would be looking into the matter. Republicans are currently trying to claw back the funds, which they claim were rushed out the door at the end of the Biden administration with little oversight and steered toward Democratic allies.
«Today’s report from the House Oversight Committee exposes the Biden administration’s sweeping green energy scheme, designed to funnel tens of billions in taxpayer dollars to enrich Democratic allies and fund partisan, politically motivated projects,» House Republican Oversight Chairman James Comer told Fox News Digital. «Americans deserve better than this green energy scam disguised as environmental justice, and Oversight Republicans will continue to hold the Biden administration accountable to ensure the EPA operates as intended and that taxpayer dollars are spent transparently, responsibly, and in the best interest of the American people.»
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A new report from Oversight Republicans says Biden’s EPA turned a $20B clean energy fund into a slush pile for political allies. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
The EPA terminated most of these grants after the Trump administration took office, but the move was met with legal pushback from Democrats. However, last week, a federal appeals court judge struck down a lower court’s ruling that blocked the Trump administration’s move to freeze the funds, arguing the administration was acting in accordance with its role to provide «proper oversight» of how funds are distributed.
The EPA has referred the matter to the agency’s inspector general. The Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation are also running concurrent investigations, the EPA has indicated. However, up to this point, no criminal wrongdoing has been uncovered.
Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., declined to comment on the matter. Additionally, several other top ranking Democrats, including the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., did not respond to requests for comment.
However, in an Aug. 11 letter to Zeldin signed by several ranking Democrats, including Clarke, they accused Zeldin of «lying» about the Inflation Reduction Act funding.
«Time and again, you have boasted about the unlawful activities EPA is conducting under your leadership without any credible evidence to justify your actions,» the letter stated.
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While there may not be any criminal wrongdoing alleged thus far, the picture painted by the investigation by House Oversight Republicans shows the Biden administration «turned the Environmental Protection Agency into a vehicle for rewarding political allies, all while risking the stability of our energy infrastructure,» according to Comer.
«Today’s report from the House Oversight Committee exposes the Biden administration’s sweeping green energy scheme, designed to funnel tens of billions in taxpayer dollars to enrich Democratic allies and fund partisan, politically motivated projects,» Comer added.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Interpretive Center and Preserve in Palo Alto, California, Monday, June 19, 2023. Biden talked about climate change, clean energy jobs and protecting the environment. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The report released by Oversight Republicans details how committee staff reviewed «tens of thousands» of documents produced by the GGRF awardees in question. The documents also included EPA materials for reviewing and awarding the GGRF funds, among other records.
The report shows how the EPA judged the applicants using a scoring system that awarded points for different parts of the nonprofits’ proposals. For example, flawless «financial risk management» awarded a total of 85 points, while flawless «legal and compliance risk management» could provide an applicant up to 40 possible points. Meanwhile, the EPA weighted «equity and environmental justice» the same way it did «financial statements» and more than it weighted good «governance» or «legal and compliance risk management,» among other categories.
«By doing so, the EPA all but ensured that the grants would go to President Biden’s political allies. All awardees of the GGRF had ‘climate equity’ or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in place or committed to putting equivalent policies in place,» the House Oversight report argues. «EPA criticized multiple applicants because their targeted reductions in emissions were too low. In other cases, the EPA staff complained that there was not enough ‘environmental justice’ expertise represented in leadership or on the boards of the nonprofits. The Biden EPA insisted on climate equity metrics over merit.»
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After receiving their scores, the program provided a «reconciliation process» for EPA staff to discuss their assessments and adjust their scores, according to the Oversight report. The ultimate decision was then passed to a single «selection official» who made the final determination.
The report also claims that the disbursement review process was «full of contradictions.» It says documents showed EPA officials had concerns about the groups receiving the funds related to overly optimistic projections for financial benefits or emissions reductions, lack of access to private capital, high uninsured cash balances, and lack of transparency. Simultaneously, in other documents, the EPA justified the GGRF recipients as entities «with track records, staff, risk management policies, and other programmatic capabilities,» according to the House Oversight report.
One of the groups under scrutiny, Climate United Fund, was established for the purpose of utilizing the GGRF, according to the Oversight report. The report points to claims from EPA staff indicating the group is «a new-entity purpose built for the execution of our program plan and does not have a robust reporting history.»
Climate United, reported just $95,557 in assets for fiscal year 2023 but received $6.97 billion from the EPA, representing a 7,293,980% increase in reported assets since 2023, the Oversight report points out.
Other groups also saw similarly significant increases.
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Power Forward Communities received $2 billion as part of the GGRF disbursements. The group, not established until after the Biden administration announced the GGRF application process, reported just $100 in assets in its first and only tax filing – meaning that following the $2 billion GGRF award, the entities’ assets increased 2,000,000,000%, according to the House Oversight report.
«These tired allegations distract from the fact that EPA’s illegal funding freeze will drive up energy costs for hardworking Americans across the country. When household bills are skyrocketing, Congress should be focused on deploying cheap, clean energy technologies rather than resurfacing false claims,» Brooke Durham, a spokesperson for Climate United told Fox News Digital when reached for comment. «Climate United welcomes the opportunity to explain our work and the benefits of the NCIF program to Congress, federal agencies, and to the public.»
The spokesperson also noted that while the Climate United coalition – which is made up of three separate organizations – is new, the organizations that make it up are not.
«The organizations that make up Climate United have been investing in communities for over 30 years, and are experts in the capital markets who have collectively managed more than $30 billion in institutional and public funds,» Durham said. She added that the group was proud to tout a 946.5 point evaluation score by the EPA out of a possible 1050 points, which Durham noted was among the highest of all the awardees.
Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters Building in Washington, D.C. (Getty)
Power Forward declined to comment. However, the group’s CEO, Tim Mayopolous told CBS News last month that the GGRF award process «was a highly structured, competitive process that the United States government went through.»
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«The organizations that are part of our coalition that actually do this work – they have been around collectively for nearly a century, and they have invested or disbursed over $100 billion of capital into communities all over America over those years,» Mayopolous added. «We’re not inexperienced people.»
Climate United, along with some of the other groups in question, are also under fire for allegedly inflating their executives’ salaries and travel benefits in proposed budgets. The CEO’s salary at Climate United was slated to be over $500,000, and at Power Forward $800,000, with an increase to over $900,00 in a year. One group produced a budget that paid its executive staff of seven employees a total of $24,862,419 over three years, according to the report.
Meanwhile, conflicts of interest, which Zeldin has described as «blatant,» were also laid bare in the report. The director of the GGRF selected by the Biden White House was a former policy director at the group that wanted to pay their executive staffers close to a combined $25 million over three years, according to the report. The report says the director had to recuse himself from the award process because of the conflict.
Republicans from the House Oversight Committee say a Biden-era green energy grant program was used to reward political allies of President Joe Biden.
At Climate United, the group currently staffs a former Biden climate advisor who worked during the last two years of the former president’s term. Their board makeup while pursuing the GGRF award also had ties to the Obama administration. However, Durham contested the implication that there were conflicts of interest, telling Fox News Digital that no staff or board members at Climate United helped with the design of the program, or the selection of the award recipients.
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Power Forward’s GGRF application process was also accused of being led by Democrat allies in the Republican Oversight report. Power Forward was founded by executives at nonprofit Rewiring America, co-founded by top Obama administration advisors, the report states. It also claims that Power Forward had planned on awarding Rewiring America with nearly $500,000,000.
«The nonprofits receiving awards are littered with connections to Biden Administration staff and allies. The executives and board members at some of the GGRF’s awardees even helped write the policies that created the GGRF and are now benefitting from exorbitant salaries provided by taxpayers,» the House Oversight report states.
«The GGRF was a huge step for the Left in realizing the Green New Deal. The program is a National Green Bank that will flood the economy with billions in taxpayer dollars to fund partisan projects regardless of whether they merit investment or not.»
green new deal,environment regulation,joe biden,corruption,politics
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En un discurso por TV, Trump afirmó que aplastó a Irán y que está «muy cerca» de terminar la guerra
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Republican leaders are rallying around President Donald Trump’s new approach to end the 47-day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding lapse — a plan that could make the agency shutdown-proof for the rest of Trump’s term.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Wednesday that DHS will be funded along «two parallel tracks,» meaning that the president’s immigration and border security agenda will receive an influx of money through a party-line reconciliation bill. The rest of DHS is funded through the normal appropriations process.
«We operated under a belief that while our country is in the midst of an international armed conflict, Democrats might finally come to their senses and understand that defunding our homeland security agencies is beyond reckless and very dangerous,» Johnson and Thune wrote in a joint statement. «We cannot allow Democrats to any longer put the safety of the American public at risk through their open border policies, so we are taking that off the table.»
The GOP leaders added that a forthcoming budget reconciliation package will include three years of immigration enforcement and border security funding. That move could prevent Democrats from using the appropriations process as leverage over the president’s immigration agenda for the remainder of his term.
Congressional Republicans are eying their own fixes to Obamacare subsidies, but the Senate and House are diverging in their approaches. Ultimately, President Donald Trump will be the deciding factor. (Getty Images)
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The GOP leaders’ budget reconciliation push comes as Republican efforts to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) through regular order have stalled in the Senate due to widespread opposition from Democrats.
With the Senate’s 60-vote legislative threshold in place, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., effectively has veto power over DHS appropriations if he keeps his caucus in line.
To end the stalemate, Trump asked Republicans Wednesday to draft a budget reconciliation package funding immigration enforcement and border security that could pass both chambers without any Democratic support.
«We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won’t be able to stop us,» Trump wrote on Truth Social. «We will not allow them to hurt the families of these Great Patriots by defunding them.»
The president added that he wants the legislation on his desk by June 1.
The budget reconciliation process would allow Republicans to steer around Democratic opposition and pass a DHS funding bill at a simple majority threshold. Republicans narrowly passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act using reconciliation in June 2025 after months of intraparty squabbling.
Though ICE and the Border Patrol received an unprecedented infusion of money through Trump’s «big, beautiful» bill, certain support staff employed by both agencies have not been paid during the seven-week shutdown.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Secret Service have seen a more significant lapse in appropriations, though Trump took executive action to provide back pay to TSA agents reporting to work during the funding lapse.
HOUSE REPUBLICANS PASS RIVAL DHS PLAN, SETTING UP SENATE FIGHT AS SHUTDOWN SET TO BECOME LONGEST IN HISTORY
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., indicated to reporters Monday that Trump would ultimately get behind the Senate’s preferred approach.
«The Democrats can’t create another shutdown like they did this time,» Hoeven said, if the DHS budget reconciliation bill were to be signed into law.
The North Dakota lawmaker also disputed that a reconciliation package would take several months to put together.
«We’ll get it done as quick as you can,» Hoeven said. «I hope it’s certainly not months.»
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Republicans are considering a budget reconciliation package making Immigration and Customs Enforcement shutdown-proof. (Mariam Zuhaib/AP Photo)
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A second reconciliation package could prove more difficult in an election year when lawmakers will have to identify spending cuts to pay for the border security and immigration funding. The strategy could also extend the funding lapse for ICE and the Border Patrol for several more months.
Amid both chambers’ planned two-week recesses, Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday he is considering calling Congress back to Washington to find a solution to the DHS shutdown.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told CNBC’s «Squawk Box» on Wednesday that a «skinny reconciliation bill» funding the department would pass both chambers once Congress resumes session in mid-April if a deal has not been reached.
House GOP leadership has previously voiced skepticism about funding immigration enforcement through a budget reconciliation package. Some conservatives have also complained about the precedent of letting Democrats decide which agencies receive funding through the normal appropriations process.
«The problem is that what they’re doing is they’re placing the burden on the Republican Party entirely to make sure that we have border security funding and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, because they’re going to try to force it into a reconciliation bill,» House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday. «That’s a very difficult task. It is a high risk gamble for us to assume that we could do that.»
homeland security, donald trump, government shutdown, mike johnson, chuck schumer, politics
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Una universidad en pánico, un tiroteo letal y 32 muertos: el caso de la masacre de Virginia Tech
El 16 de abril de 2007 comenzó como cualquier otro día en el campus del Virginia Tech, una universidad ubicada en la ciudad estadounidense de Blacksburg. Por la mañana, los estudiantes se preparaban para irse a clase, repasaban apuntes o salían de sus residencias en camino a las aulas.
Nada hacía parecer que, en cuestión de minutos, ese espacio cotidiano se transformaría en el escenario del peor ataque armado en la historia de una universidad en Estados Unidos.
Las primeras señales de alarma llegaron temprano. A las 7:15 de la mañana, un llamado al 911 alertó sobre disparos dentro de una residencia estudiantil. Dos personas habían sido atacadas en el edificio West Ambler Johnston Hall.
En ese momento, las autoridades creyeron que se trataba de un hecho aislado, posiblemente vinculado a una situación personal, por lo que el campus no fue evacuado y las clases siguieron con normalidad.
Esa decisión, que luego sería duramente cuestionada, marcó el inicio de una tragedia que terminaría dejando 32 víctimas fatales, además del propio atacante.
La masacre
El autor de los disparos fue identificado como Seung-Hui Cho, un estudiante de 23 años que seguía la carrera de literatura inglesa. Había nacido en Corea del Sur, pero vivía desde hacía años en Estados Unidos y vivía dentro del campus universitario.
El primer ataque ocurrió en la residencia estudiantil. Allí fueron asesinados Emily Hilscher, una joven de 19 años, y Ryan Clark, de 22, quien intentó intervenir al escuchar los disparos. Tras ese episodio, el agresor se retiró del lugar sin ser detenido. Así trasladaron a una de las víctimas de la masacre de Virginia Tech. (Foto: AP)
Durante las siguientes dos horas, Cho permaneció en un punto aún no completamente esclarecido por los investigadores. En ese lapso, regresó a su habitación, se cambió de ropa, cargó armas y dejó una nota. Además hizo algo que luego resultaría clave para la investigación: envió un paquete a la cadena NBC News en Nueva York, que contenía un manifesto, fotos y videos en los que expresaba su odio hacia la sociedad.
Cerca de las 9:30 de la mañana, el atacante ingresó al edificio Norris Hall, donde se cursaban carreras de ingeniería. Allí ejecutó la fase más letal del ataque. Antes de comenzar a disparar, encadenó las puertas desde el interior para impedir la huida de estudiantes y profesores.
Armado con una pistola Glock 19 y una Walther P22, recorrió aulas y pasillos disparando de manera sistemática. En apenas nueve minutos, mató a 32 personas y dejó decenas de heridos. En total, 61 personas fueron alcanzadas por disparos durante toda la jornada.
La policía redujo a varios estudiantes en busca del tirador. (Foto: AP)
Algunos estudiantes lograron sobrevivir escondiéndose o improvisando “barricadas” para protegerse. Otros, en un intento desesperado por escapar, se tiraron por las ventanas. También hubo actos de heroísmo: el profesor Liviu Librescu, sobreviviente del Holocausto, bloqueó la puerta de su aula con su propio cuerpo para impedir que las balas impactaran contra sus alumnos.
Cuando la policía logró ingresar al edificio, tras romper las cadenas de las puertas, el silencio ya se había instalado. A las 9:51, los disparos cesaron: Cho se había suicidado de un tiro en la cabeza.
La investigación
La magnitud del ataque obligó a desplegar un operativo sin precedentes. En un primer momento, incluso se consideró la posibilidad de que hubiera más de un tirador, debido a la distancia y el tiempo entre los dos ataques. Sin embargo, rápidamente se confirmó que todo había sido obra de una sola persona.
Los investigadores determinaron que Cho había planificado el ataque con antelación. Había comprado las armas semanas antes y acumulado municiones. Según el FBI, no se trató de un acto impulsivo, sino de un plan cuidadosamente pensado.
El contenido enviado a la NBC resultó clave para comprender su estado mental. En los videos, Cho se mostraba frente a cámara, armado y pronunciaba mensajes cargados de resentimiento. Se presentaba como una víctima de la sociedad y justificaba su accionar como una forma de respuesta a supuestas injusticias. Una de las imágenes que envió el tirador, Seung-Hui Cho, a la cadena NBC News. (Foto: NBC News)
También salieron a la luz antecedentes preocupantes. Compañeros y docentes habían advertido sobre su comportamiento aislado, su dificultad para relacionarse y su escritura, considerada violenta y perturbadora. Incluso había sido derivado a instancias de evaluación psicológica tiempo antes del ataque.
Leé también: Se obsesionó con una serie sobre un asesino, armó un plan para imitarlo y terminó preso por un cuaderno
Un antes y un después
Tras la masacre, los estudiantes del Virginia Tech quedaron paralizados. Las clases fueron suspendidas durante el resto de la semana y el edificio Norris Hall permaneció cerrado por el resto del semestre. Se organizaron vigilias, homenajes y espacios de contención para estudiantes y docentes.
El entonces presidente de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, participó de actos conmemorativos y expresó el duelo nacional. La Cruz Roja y equipos de salud mental se instalaron en la zona para asistir a los sobrevivientes.
El expresidente George W. Bush en el santuario de las víctimas que murieron en la masacre de Virginia Tech. (Foto: Archivo de la Casa Blanca)
Sin embargo, junto con el dolor, muchos estudiantes cuestionaron por qué no se evacuó el campus tras el primer tiroteo. Las autoridades universitarias admitieron que inicialmente interpretaron ese episodio como un hecho aislado, lo que retrasó la respuesta ante la segunda fase del ataque.
En 2008, el estado de Virginia alcanzó un acuerdo con los familiares de las víctimas, que incluyó indemnizaciones millonarias.
Estados Unidos, Tiroteo, universidad, masacre
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