INTERNACIONAL
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
INTERNACIONAL
Tokio rechazó las acusaciones “infundadas” de Beijing tras una carta remitida a la ONU e instó a China al diálogo
El Ejecutivo japonés salió este sábado al cruce de las recientes denuncias de China contra la primera ministra Sanae Takaichi, a quien el régimen chino acusó de alterar la postura histórica de Tokio sobre su respaldo a Taiwán.
Desde Tokio calificaron las imputaciones como “totalmente infundadas” y subrayaron la continuidad de su línea política, negando un cambio en la posición oficial sobre el estrecho. Así lo expresó la portavoz Maki Kobayashi durante la cumbre del G20 en Johannesburgo, en declaraciones reproducidas por Bloomberg.
Kobayashi aseguró estar al tanto de la carta enviada por Beijiing a António Guterres, secretario general de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU), y recalcó que Japón explicó ya “en repetidas ocasiones” el sentido de los comentarios de su primera ministra, remarcando la apuesta del gobierno nipón por “el diálogo”.
Pese a ello, en Johannesburgo no fue posible avanzar en una conversación directa: desde China descartaron una reunión oficial entre Takaichi y el primer ministro Li Qiang, aunque ambos compartieron espacio en la foto de grupo de la cumbre.
El origen de la controversia radica en las declaraciones de Takaichi sobre la potencial respuesta japonesa ante una posible escalada militar de China contra Taiwán. El régimen liderado por Xi Jinping reaccionó enviando una misiva donde advierte de posibles “medidas de autodefensa” si Japón llegara a intervenir militarmente en apoyo a la isla, al tiempo que buscó movilizar respaldo internacional en Naciones Unidas.
Lejos de dar marcha atrás, Takaichi reiteró este viernes su negativa a retractarse de sus afirmaciones referidas a Taiwán y defendió la determinación japonesa de actuar igual ante una emergencia de seguridad en la región. Al calor del conflicto, incluso el cónsul chino en Osaka, Xue Jian, llegó a compartir (y luego eliminar) un mensaje en el que apostaba por “cortar el sucio cuello” de la primera ministra nipona.
Al mismo tiempo, las relaciones bilaterales registran nuevas restricciones: entre las últimas medidas, Beijing desaconsejó a sus ciudadanos visitar Japón, ordenó la suspensión de importaciones de mariscos japoneses y detuvo el estreno de nuevas películas japonesas en su mercado.
En cuanto a la relación entre Tokio y Taipéi, Taiwán confirmó el viernes pasado el levantamiento de las restricciones que, desde 2011, afectaban a las importaciones de alimentos originarios de Fukushima (Japón). Las autoridades informaron que dejarán de aplicar los requisitos de doble certificación y la inspección exhaustiva por lotes.
La medida surge poco después de que el gobernador de Niigata, Hideyo Hanazumi, autorizara la reactivación de la central nuclear de Kashiwazaki-Kariwa —la mayor del mundo—, que permanecía fuera de servicio desde el accidente nuclear ocurrido en Fukushima Daiichi en 2011 a raíz de un terremoto y posterior tsunami.
El anuncio del gobierno taiwanés marca la normalización de criterios para la entrada de productos japoneses en la isla, en un contexto donde la energía nuclear y la seguridad alimentaria siguen siendo ejes de debate en Japón.
La disputa regional se enmarca en décadas de sensibilidad diplomática. Desde que los lazos políticos entre China y Taiwán se cortaron en 1949 tras la guerra civil, solo se restablecieron en formatos no oficiales a partir de los años 80, mientras Tokio y Beijing mantienen diferencias históricas sobre la soberanía y seguridad en la región.
International,Relations,Africa,Diplomacy / Foreign Policy
INTERNACIONAL
EXCLUSIVE: Bondi DOJ transfers death row inmates commuted by Biden to ‘supermax’ prison
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FIRST ON FOX — Two federal inmates previously on death row — one a crooked New Orleans cop, the other behind a multi-state killing spree — have been transferred to a notorious «supermax» prison in Colorado, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.
News of their transfers comes as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi looks to crack down on the previous administration’s sweeping clemency actions, especially those against violent crime.
The former death row inmates were transferred Thursday to the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, also known as «ADX,» Justice Department officials confirmed.
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They are among the 37 death row inmates whose sentences former President Joe Biden commuted shortly before leaving office last December. The news prompted criticism and complaints that the record clemency and commutation actions were done as a political «Hail Mary» and without proper vetting.
Eight death row inmates have already been transferred to ADX, the Justice Department told Fox News Digital, bringing to 10 the number of death row inmates that have been transferred to the prison since mid-September.
President Donald Trump walks with Attorney General Pam Bondi during a visit to the Justice Department March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
More are expected soon. all 37 death row inmates commuted by Biden are expected to be moved to the prison by «early next year,» the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.
The effort comes as Bondi and the Trump administration have sought to reverse some of the Biden administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform, with an emphasis on cracking down on violent crime.
Though sentence commutations cannot be fully reversed, Justice Department officials told Fox News Digital, Bondi has prioritized ways to penalize these individuals in coordination with directives from Trump and to ensure that the «conditions of confinement» are «consistent with the security risks those inmates present because of their egregious crimes, criminal histories and all other relevant considerations,» according to an earlier DOJ memo.
«Two more monsters who plotted and violently murdered innocent people will spend the rest of their lives in our country’s most severe federal prison,» Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Digital in a statement.
«This Department of Justice will continue to seek accountability for the families blindsided by President Biden’s reckless commutations of 37 vicious predators.»
Like the eight former death row inmates sent to Colorado’s supermax prison, the two criminals processed in ADX Thursday have been convicted of particularly heinous crimes.
One individual chased down his ex-girlfriend from Roanoke, Virginia, to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he cut phone lines to the apartment she was living in before using cans of gasoline to set the building on fire.
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The ADX supermax prison in Florence, Colo. (Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Sygma via Getty Images)
Though she escaped via a second-story window and was hospitalized for second- and third-degree burns, he followed her back to her family’s home in Virginia two months later, where he gunned her down on the streets of her neighborhood and just steps from her mother.
Another inmate, a former New Orleans police officer known as «Robocop» for his large physical demeanor and aggressive law enforcement style, was caught on tape by the FBI as he ordered and orchestrated the killing of a mother of three who had come to the precinct hours earlier to submit a supposedly confidential brutality complaint about his behavior that she witnessed on her way home the night before.
The FBI had stumbled upon the conversation as part of a broader probe it had started to investigate a so-called «protection racket» between cocaine dealers in New Orleans and the city’s police force, which had been guarding a warehouse stocked with the drug. The same officer was later revealed as one of the chief conspirators in the protection racket.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
He was also found to have falsely testified in two murder cases, including one murder he has since been linked to. The statements were used to exonerate four men from prison, including three teenagers who had been wrongfully convicted of a murder 28 years earlier.
ADX is the only true federal «supermax» prison in the U.S., and its inmates are as notorious as the prison’s reputation.
Among them are Ramzi Yousef, convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers; former Sinola Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán, or «El Chapo»; and Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the co-founder of al Qaeda.
Shortly after her confirmation as attorney general, Bondi issued a memo aimed at «restoring a measure of justice» to the victims’ families.
The measures granted by Biden earned more criticism than former President Barack Obama. As Fox News reported at the time, the vast majority of Obama’s clemency actions focused on commuting the sentences of federal inmates who met certain criteria outlined under his administration’s Clemency Initiative.
Bondi hosted victims’ families earlier this year to hear their concerns about the commutations, the DOJ said. Some said they had been stunned by the eleventh-hour commutations and that they had not been given a heads-up by the Biden administration.
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In February, Bondi issued a memo to the Bureau of Prisons ordering an evaluation of where these prisoners should be detained.
donald trump,justice department,politics,crime world
INTERNACIONAL
Teachers called ‘true heroes’ after repelling grizzly bear that attacked school group, injuring 11
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Teachers fended off a grizzly bear that attacked a school group walking along a trail in British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, officials said.
«The group had stopped along a trail near the community when a grizzly bear emerged from the forest and attacked,» Insp. Kevin Van Damme of British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service, said in an update on social media. «Teachers successfully repelled the bear using pepper spray and a bear banger.»
Eleven people were injured in the attack, including students in the fourth and fifth grade, according to CBC News.
Two were in critical condition, two in serious condition and the other seven were treated at the scene, the British Columbia Health Services said.
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British Columbia’s Conservation Officer Service said the grizzly emerged from the woods and «attacked.» (Matthew Bailey/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The incident happened in Bella Coola, a town more than 400 miles north of Vancouver.
The victims were taken to Bella Coola Hospital and were being transferred to Vancouver for further care, Van Damme said.
Officials were still searching for the bear as of Friday, who they believe may have been previously injured.
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«We recognize this incident is distressing for the community. We are in close contact with the Nuxalk Nation as our investigation continues. We thank them for their collaborative efforts to ensure community awareness and shared safety information,» Van Damme said. «Our thoughts are with the victims and their families, and we wish them a full and speedy recovery.»
Bella Coola is more than 400 miles north of Vancouver in British Columbia. (Google Maps)
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Tamara Davidson, British Columbia’s Minister of Environment and Parks, called the teachers who fought off the bear «true heroes,» adding that they were well-prepared, according to the Guardian.
world,wild nature,canada
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