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A $20 Billion Slush Fund—Paid by You to Progressive Nonprofits
(Illustration by The Free Press, images via Getty)
It appears the billions didn’t revitalize anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials.
By Madeleine Rowley
03.04.25 — U.S. Politics
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The Department of Justice is investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program that was part of Joe Biden’s $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Created in the spring of 2023, and managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the fund was supposed to be a first-of-its-kind program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing communities that it considered “historically left behind.”

But it appears little of the $27 billion revitalized anything—except the coffers of a range of environmental nonprofits associated with former Obama and Biden administration officials.

“The Biden administration used so-called ‘climate equity’ to justify handouts of billions of dollars to their far-left friends,” Lee Zeldin, the Trump administration’s new EPA administrator, told The Free Press. “It is my utmost priority to get a handle on every dollar that went out the door in this scheme and once again restore oversight and accountability over these funds. This rush job operation is riddled with conflicts of interest and corruption.”

A Free Press investigation reveals that of the $27 billion, $20 billion was rushed out the door to eight nonprofit groups after Kamala Harris lost the election—but before President Donald Trump took office. As one former EPA official put it on a secretly recorded video, it was akin to “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.”

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Madeleine Rowley
Madeleine Rowley is an investigative reporter covering immigration, financial corruption, and politics. She is a 2023-2024 Manhattan Institute Logos Fellow with previous bylines in The Free Press, City Journal, and Public. As a U.S. Army spouse for almost a decade, she's lived in six states and spent two years in Jerusalem, Israel. She currently resides on the East Coast with her husband and daughter.
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DOGE
Nonprofits
Environment
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