Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin says his agency has uncovered roughly $20 billion that was stashed at “an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA” by the Climate United Fund (CUF).

Zeldin confirmed finding the funds on Feb 13, just 8 days after the Durham Reporter published a story on the connection between Durham-based Self Help Credit Union and two other organizations that make up the CUF.

The CUF was advertising to hire for a position to help spend the $6.97 billion “climate change” grant which it had received as part of the $20 billion which was dispersed during the final days of the departing Biden administration.

A political appointee to the EPA under the outgoing administration was caught on video bragging about “tossing gold bars off the Titanic” in an effort to push as much money as possible out the door before the Trump administration was inaugurated.

Zeldin denounced the actions of the Biden EPA, saying, “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.”

The job listing posted by Self Help Credit Union described the “Climate Capital Director” position as being responsible for “developing and executing investment initiatives aligned with the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF).

The NCIF was created as part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which was signed into law by President Biden in 2023 as part of the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF).

According to the Durham Reporter, the NCIF was created to take federal taxpayer dollars to finance projects that Self Help claimed would focus on issues like “climate resilience” and “environmental justice.”

The nearly $7 billion grant made CUF the largest recipient of funding for the NCIF program.

CUF has ties to Self-Help Ventures Fund which an EPA press release describes as a “U.S. Treasury-certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).”

CDFI was the subject of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by Federal Newswire in Nov 2024 seeking all communications between CDFI staff and employees or representatives of Self-Help Credit Union, Self-Help Federal Credit Union, Self-Help Ventures Fund, and/or the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) from 2020 through the present.

CRL and the other Self Help entities were founded by Durham resident Martin Eakes who had served on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (FDIC) Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion.

The FDIC advisory committee had faced scrutiny over suspected conflicts of interest related to Operation Choke Point 2.0 which began during the Obama administration and allegedly pressured banks to sever ties with certain businesses considered “high risk” including gun dealers, payday lenders and called for restriction banking services for cryptocurrency and certain tech industries.

Zeldin has referred the matter of the “parked” $20 billion in EPA funding to the Inspector General and Attorney General Pam Bondi.